Paula Kivimaa
Biographic Data
| ID | 308752 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Paula Kivimaa |
| GIVEN NAMES | Paula |
| FAMILY NAME | Kivimaa |
| SIGNATURE | KIVIMAA P |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Sussex |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-2812-8017 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 47 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 1241 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 47 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2007 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 12 |
Synergies and tensions between decarbonisation, security and strategic autonomy in EU energy policy
Increasing concerns over European security and competitiveness during the 2020s have changed the policy landscape in the EU. Pertaining to energy, this has meant that the decarbonisation objectives put in place by the EU Green Deal are contrasted with objectives for improved energy security and open strategic autonomy (OSA), with potentially hindering implications on the advancement of sustainability transitions. This article explores policy syne…
Evaluating perceptions of justice in critical raw materials provision in Finland
The research examines justice in critical raw materials governance. • Finland is a significant producer of critical raw materials in the EU. • Policy documents primarily address procedural and distributive justice aspects. • Cosmopolitan and intergenerational justice receive narrow attention. • The opportunities of the Sámi people to resist mineral activities appear as limited. The literature on critical raw materials (CRM) has called for a holis…
Critical intervention points for European adaptation to cascading climate change impacts
In an interconnected world, climate change impacts can cascade across sectors and regions, creating systemic risks. Here we analyse cascading climate change impacts on the EU, originating from outside the region, and identify critical intervention points for adaptation. Using network analysis, we integrate stakeholder-co-produced impact chains with quantitative data for 102 countries across foreign policy, human security, trade and finance. Our a…
The acceleration of low-carbon transitions
Given that several low-carbon transitions are now accelerating, what can we say about the drivers, conditions, mechanisms, and dynamics of acceleration? This question is widely discussed in policy and academic circles, but so far there is little attempt to develop a more comprehensive answer that considers the pluralistic and heterogeneous nature of what acceleration is, how it comes about, and how it can be studied moving forward. To provide a m…
We rather not connect trade to politics, let alone geopolitics” – The changing role of Russia as a landscape pressure for zero-carbon energy transitions
This article aims for conceptual and empirical insights by focusing on a missing aspect in sustainability transitions research: the geopolitical setting as a landscape pressure for energy transitions. It analyses how energy super-power Russia is depicted before and after 2022 as a factor influencing the energy transition of small northern European countries: Estonia, Finland and Norway. The article also provides empirical findings on the impacts …
Interrelations between security and the zero‐carbon energy transition in the Finnish and Norwegian Arctic
The Arctic faces major energy-related changes: its production, consumption and transportation must be decarbonised. Furthermore, geopolitical interests in the area are growing, with tensions around land use expected to increase. In this paper, we investigate energy transition processes in the Finnish and Norwegian Arctic from the niche development and regime decline viewpoints. We mirror these processes onto concepts of positive and negative secu…
A global south perspective on the interplay between innovation policy mix and technological innovation systems dynamics
Securitization of Energy Transitions in Estonia, Finland and Norway
This paper analyses the extent to which zero-carbon energy transitions are a securitized phenomenon in selected countries and what that means for sustainability transitions more broadly. Without taking a normative stance on securitization, we focus on the ways in which security is constructed through in-depth interviews with experts in the energy, security, and defense sectors in Estonia, Finland, and Norway. We use a securitization framework to …
Municipal experimental policy engagements in the built environment
Experimentation is a key theme in the sustainability transition literature, where cities are recognized as key intermediaries in experimentation. Whilst attention has focused on the role of the cities as intermediary actors, the ways in which municipalities engage in and support experimentation is less known. In a collective case study of four Finnish municipalities, we draw on the transformative innovation policy literature to investigate the ex…
Climate Security Connects Fragile and Strong States via Cascading Effects
During the ongoing decade, the importance of security as a topic has heightened, not least because of the health and broader implications of the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russian attack on Ukraine. We have also seen a rapid acceleration in extreme weather events influenced by climate change, including forest fires in Australia, the United States, and Europe; severe flooding in many parts of the world; and extreme heat waves in, for instance, Indi…
Politics in the energy-security nexus
To reduce the energy sector's CO 2 emissions, sustainability transitions are essential but may have unexpected national security consequences.We investigate policymaking around energy transitions and national security, combining sociology with sustainability transitions thinking to analyse 73 policy documents issued between 2006 and 2023 in Estonia, Finland, and Norway and investigate how zero-carbon energy and security issues have co-evolved wit…
Three decades of EU climate policy
The European Union (EU) began developing climate policy in the 1990s. Since then, it has built up a broad portfolio of mitigation policy measures and governance tools, including legally binding targets to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and policy measures addressing emissions trading, renewable energy, energy efficiency, and more. In 2019, the European Commission—the EU's executive arm—published the European Green Deal (EGD), an overarchi…
How will renewables expansion and hydrocarbon decline impact security? Analysis from a socio-technical transitions perspective
Security implications of zero-carbon energy transitions have only recently received more focus. Overarching analyses in transition studies are lacking. Therefore, we combine concepts of positive and negative security with transitions research to analyse the security issues associated with the unfolding transition. We create a framework that explores security via two dimensions: renewables expansion and hydrocarbon decline, suggesting three elemen…
A socio-technical lens on security in sustainability transitions
A transition to net-zero carbon energy systems, imperative to combat climate change, is unfolding around the world. Other socio-technical systems also face the need to transition to become more environmentally and socially sustainable. We argue that such transitions will have both positive and negative security implications on numerous issues which deserve attention but have been little addressed in transition studies. We take a socio-technical l…
A perspective on the future of sustainability transitions research
The journal Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions (EIST) recently celebrated its tenth anniversary. Its development represents a great success, contributing substantially to the consolidation and maturation of the research field of sustainability transitions. However, being content with past successes will not be sufficient for tackling emerging challenges. In this perspective paper, we take stock of recent dynamics in the field by an…
Transforming innovation policy in the context of global security
Highlights \n \n• Rapid major shifts in the global security landscape impact innovation policy. \n \n• Accelerating transitions place new attentions for transforming innovation policy. \n \n• Transitions’ security implications should be considered in innovation policy. \n \n• An anticipatory approach needs to be coupled with reflective policymaking. \n \n• Increasing interaction across policy domains and fields of scholarship is needed
Moving beyond disruptive innovation
Because of the urgency of accelerating transitions, we examine the emerging understanding of the concept of ‘disruption’ in the context of sustainability transition studies to critically assess its value, pitfalls and potentials. By conducting a qualitative systematic review of 47 articles, we analyse how disruption is seen in this literature and what is being disrupted. We identify four non-technical dimensions of disruption, adding ‘behaviour, …
Exploring the re-emergence of industrial policy
Industrial policy has re-emerged as an area of policy discussion in recent years, but the characteristics and role of industrial policy vary across national contexts. Particularly, the role of industrial policy in the ongoing energy transitions of different countries has received little attention. We introduce an analytical framework to explore the relationship between industrial policy and different energy policy trajectories and apply this fram…
Interplay between low-carbon energy transitions and national security
Sustainable Development Goals aim for a better future, but gains are threatened by conflict and governance failures, exacerbated by climate change. While research on energy security is well-established, conceptual-analytical research on sustainability transitions has paid little attention to security threats as factors influencing transitions or security policy as part of policy mixes. This paper combines policy coherence and integration analysis…
Research frontiers for multi-system dynamics and deep transitions
Celebrating a decade of Eist
What opportunities could the Covid-19 outbreak offer for sustainability transitions research on electricity and mobility
The COVID-19 pandemic is a major landscape shock that is having pervasive effects across socio-technical systems. Due to its recentness, sustainability scientists and other researchers have only started to investigate the implications of this crisis. The COVID-19 outbreak presents a unique opportunity to analyze in real time the effects of a protracted landscape-scale perturbation on the trajectories of sustainability transitions. In this perspec…
Guides or gatekeepers? Incumbent-oriented transition intermediaries in a low-carbon era
Transitions intermediaries—agents who connect diverse groups of actors involved in transitions processes and their skills, resources and expectations—are becoming more prominent in research on low-carbon transitions. Most work, however, has focused on their ability to push innovations or emerging technologies forward, emphasising their involvement in disrupting incumbent regimes or firms. However, in focusing on new entrants, often at the grassro…
Intermediating policy for transitions towards net-zero energy buildings
Conceptualising the systemic activities of intermediaries in sustainability transitions
An agenda for sustainability transitions research
Passing the baton
Conceptualising the systemic activities of intermediaries in sustainability transitions
Policy packaging or policy patching? The development of complex energy efficiency policy mixes
The ambition of energy policy has long been to reduce carbon emissions, secure energy supply and provide affordable energy services. In recent years an increasing number of policy instruments has been introduced to promote energy efficiency across the EU. While previous research has analysed the effectiveness of individual policy instruments and their impact on the diffusion of particular energy efficient technologies or practices, our analysis t…
Guides or gatekeepers? Incumbent-oriented transition intermediaries in a low-carbon era
Transitions intermediaries—agents who connect diverse groups of actors involved in transitions processes and their skills, resources and expectations—are becoming more prominent in research on low-carbon transitions. Most work, however, has focused on their ability to push innovations or emerging technologies forward, emphasising their involvement in disrupting incumbent regimes or firms. However, in focusing on new entrants, often at the grassro…
Intermediaries in accelerating transitions
A perspective on the future of sustainability transitions research
The journal Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions (EIST) recently celebrated its tenth anniversary. Its development represents a great success, contributing substantially to the consolidation and maturation of the research field of sustainability transitions. However, being content with past successes will not be sufficient for tackling emerging challenges. In this perspective paper, we take stock of recent dynamics in the field by an…
Waves of disruption in clean energy transitions
Academic and policy literatures are seeing a growing discussion about ‘clean energy disruption’. However, the term disruption often lacks definitional clarity. Departing from the concept of disruptive innovation and based on a review of firm-based management and socio-technical transitions literatures, we derive four dimensions of system disruption: technology, markets and business models, ownership and actors, and regulation. We apply these dime…
Governance through expectations
The need for policy coherence to trigger a transition to biogas production
Interplay between low-carbon energy transitions and national security
Sustainable Development Goals aim for a better future, but gains are threatened by conflict and governance failures, exacerbated by climate change. While research on energy security is well-established, conceptual-analytical research on sustainability transitions has paid little attention to security threats as factors influencing transitions or security policy as part of policy mixes. This paper combines policy coherence and integration analysis…
Research frontiers for multi-system dynamics and deep transitions
How will renewables expansion and hydrocarbon decline impact security? Analysis from a socio-technical transitions perspective
Security implications of zero-carbon energy transitions have only recently received more focus. Overarching analyses in transition studies are lacking. Therefore, we combine concepts of positive and negative security with transitions research to analyse the security issues associated with the unfolding transition. We create a framework that explores security via two dimensions: renewables expansion and hydrocarbon decline, suggesting three elemen…
Multiple dimensions of disruption, energy transitions and industrial policy
Three decades of EU climate policy
The European Union (EU) began developing climate policy in the 1990s. Since then, it has built up a broad portfolio of mitigation policy measures and governance tools, including legally binding targets to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and policy measures addressing emissions trading, renewable energy, energy efficiency, and more. In 2019, the European Commission—the EU's executive arm—published the European Green Deal (EGD), an overarchi…
A socio-technical lens on security in sustainability transitions
A transition to net-zero carbon energy systems, imperative to combat climate change, is unfolding around the world. Other socio-technical systems also face the need to transition to become more environmentally and socially sustainable. We argue that such transitions will have both positive and negative security implications on numerous issues which deserve attention but have been little addressed in transition studies. We take a socio-technical l…
Client-oriented evaluation of ‘creative destruction’ in policy mixes
This article connects the literatures of policy evaluation, policy mixes and sustainability transition. It utilises client-oriented evaluation to examine national policies in Finland from the perspective of low-carbon buildings transition. In Finland, energy efficiency has traditionally received less focus in energy and climate policy strategies compared to renewable energy. Since 2007, energy efficiency policies addressing buildings gained force…
Evaluating Policy Integration
The integration of certain policy objectives into other policy sectors – i.e. policy integration of such issues as gender, regional development, employment and environmental protection – is frequently requested in order to improve public policy. The article discusses the importance of evaluating policy integration as well as the perspective that such evaluations should extend to the outputs and outcomes of policies. Two examples of evaluating pol…
Exploring the re-emergence of industrial policy
Industrial policy has re-emerged as an area of policy discussion in recent years, but the characteristics and role of industrial policy vary across national contexts. Particularly, the role of industrial policy in the ongoing energy transitions of different countries has received little attention. We introduce an analytical framework to explore the relationship between industrial policy and different energy policy trajectories and apply this fram…
The acceleration of low-carbon transitions
Given that several low-carbon transitions are now accelerating, what can we say about the drivers, conditions, mechanisms, and dynamics of acceleration? This question is widely discussed in policy and academic circles, but so far there is little attempt to develop a more comprehensive answer that considers the pluralistic and heterogeneous nature of what acceleration is, how it comes about, and how it can be studied moving forward. To provide a m…
Understanding integrated-solution innovations in sustainability transitions
Intermediating policy for transitions towards net-zero energy buildings
Socio-technical transition governance and public opinion
Climate policy innovation
Seeking to develop a novel understanding of how climate policy innovation (CPI) emerges and spreads, we conceptualise three types of CPIs – genuinely original, diffusion based, and reframing based – and relate these to the sociotechnical transitions literature, particularly the multi-level perspective (MLP) that explains change through interaction between ‘niche’, ‘regime’, and ‘landscape’ levels. Selected climate-related transport policies in Fi…
Path dependence and technological expectations in transport policy
Evaluating Policy Integration
The integration of certain policy objectives into other policy sectors – i.e. policy integration of such issues as gender, regional development, employment and environmental protection – is frequently requested in order to improve public policy. The article discusses the importance of evaluating policy integration as well as the perspective that such evaluations should extend to the outputs and outcomes of policies. Two examples of evaluating pol…
Integrating Environment for Innovation
Environmental innovations have been emphasized for effectively solving environmental problems. In the innovation literature, organizational factors have been listed among the determinants of innovations, and firm-level research and development (R&D) has been perceived crucial. This indicates that environmental considerations should be integrated into all organizations, especially in R&D, to promote environmental innovation. A typology of six form…
Path dependence and technological expectations in transport policy
Government-affiliated intermediary organisations as actors in system-level transitions
The need for policy coherence to trigger a transition to biogas production
Climate policy innovation
Seeking to develop a novel understanding of how climate policy innovation (CPI) emerges and spreads, we conceptualise three types of CPIs – genuinely original, diffusion based, and reframing based – and relate these to the sociotechnical transitions literature, particularly the multi-level perspective (MLP) that explains change through interaction between ‘niche’, ‘regime’, and ‘landscape’ levels. Selected climate-related transport policies in Fi…
Socio-technical transition governance and public opinion
Creative destruction or mere niche support? Innovation policy mixes for sustainability transitions
Recently, there has been an increasing interest in policy mixes in innovation studies. While it has long been acknowledged that the stimulation of innovation and technological change involves different types of policy instruments, how such instruments form policy mixes has only recently become of interest. We argue that an area in which policy mixes are particularly important is the field of sustainability transitions. Transitions imply not only …
Policy packaging or policy patching? The development of complex energy efficiency policy mixes
The ambition of energy policy has long been to reduce carbon emissions, secure energy supply and provide affordable energy services. In recent years an increasing number of policy instruments has been introduced to promote energy efficiency across the EU. While previous research has analysed the effectiveness of individual policy instruments and their impact on the diffusion of particular energy efficient technologies or practices, our analysis t…
Experiments in climate governance – A systematic review of research on energy and built environment transitions
Vulnerability and resistance in the United Kingdom's smart meter transition
Towards a Typology of Intermediaries in Transitions
Client-oriented evaluation of ‘creative destruction’ in policy mixes
This article connects the literatures of policy evaluation, policy mixes and sustainability transition. It utilises client-oriented evaluation to examine national policies in Finland from the perspective of low-carbon buildings transition. In Finland, energy efficiency has traditionally received less focus in energy and climate policy strategies compared to renewable energy. Since 2007, energy efficiency policies addressing buildings gained force…
Multiple dimensions of disruption, energy transitions and industrial policy
Promoting sustainable energy
Towards a typology of intermediaries in sustainability transitions
Understanding integrated-solution innovations in sustainability transitions
Waves of disruption in clean energy transitions
Academic and policy literatures are seeing a growing discussion about ‘clean energy disruption’. However, the term disruption often lacks definitional clarity. Departing from the concept of disruptive innovation and based on a review of firm-based management and socio-technical transitions literatures, we derive four dimensions of system disruption: technology, markets and business models, ownership and actors, and regulation. We apply these dime…
Governance through expectations
Passing the baton
An agenda for sustainability transitions research
What opportunities could the Covid-19 outbreak offer for sustainability transitions research on electricity and mobility
The COVID-19 pandemic is a major landscape shock that is having pervasive effects across socio-technical systems. Due to its recentness, sustainability scientists and other researchers have only started to investigate the implications of this crisis. The COVID-19 outbreak presents a unique opportunity to analyze in real time the effects of a protracted landscape-scale perturbation on the trajectories of sustainability transitions. In this perspec…
Guides or gatekeepers? Incumbent-oriented transition intermediaries in a low-carbon era
Transitions intermediaries—agents who connect diverse groups of actors involved in transitions processes and their skills, resources and expectations—are becoming more prominent in research on low-carbon transitions. Most work, however, has focused on their ability to push innovations or emerging technologies forward, emphasising their involvement in disrupting incumbent regimes or firms. However, in focusing on new entrants, often at the grassro…
Intermediating policy for transitions towards net-zero energy buildings
Conceptualising the systemic activities of intermediaries in sustainability transitions
Economics (31 works) · Political science (28 works) · Sustainability and Climate Change Governance (26 works) · Business (25 works) · Sustainability (18 works) · Engineering (17 works) · Sociology (17 works) · Computer Science (14 works) · Economic system (14 works) · Ecology (12 works)