Overview

This workshop will bring together emerging scholars from diverse regions to explore the intersections of sustainability transitions, innovation economics, and decolonizing perspectives. It will be hosted as part of the 10th-anniversary celebration of the International NEST (Network for Early Career Researchers in Sustainability Transitions) Conference, held at the University of Sussex, UK in May 2025. The NEST Forum, originally founded over a decade ago by PhD researchers at Sussex, has become an international platform advancing sustainability transitions research in a decade. The YSI-supported workshop will take place on Day 1 of the two-day NEST event, offering a dedicated space for young scholars to engage deeply with these essential themes. Sustainability transitions involve profound shifts in industries, societies,  technologies, and cultures towards more sustainable practices, and these shifts are deeply influenced by economic factors. The proposed half-day workshop will focus on how novel technologies, business models, social innovations, and institutional changes drive these transitions, with a particular emphasis on the economic dynamics that enable or inhibit innovation. While the workshop is open to scholars globally, it will provide financial support for young scholars from the Global South to attend, ensuring their participation and contribution. This inclusion is essential to enrich the conversation by incorporating perspectives from regions where systemic barriers and urgent sustainability challenges require innovative approaches. The funded scholars will bring insights from the Global South, offering a valuable contrast to dominant Western narratives in the field and enhancing our understanding of how innovation pathways differ across economic and cultural contexts. The workshop will also focus on integrating decolonizing perspectives, prompting participants to critically examine how global inequalities and historical power imbalances influence sustainability transitions. By challenging dominant frameworks in innovation economics, the workshop will encourage a reimagining of how innovation can better serve historically marginalized communities and regions. Participants will explore how economic models and innovation systems can be adapted to promote more just, inclusive, and equitable transitions. These discussions will foster a global dialogue, with scholars from different regions sharing insights and learning from each other’s experiences. This workshop will serve as a crucial step in bridging the knowledge gap on addressing inequalities within sustainability transitions from an innovation economics perspective, especially in contexts where just sustainability transitions may hold a different significance, as in many Global South regions.

Structure and Format

The workshop will be a half-day event, structured to maximize engagement and collaboration. It will begin with a combined panel discussion that integrates both the economics of innovation and decolonizing perspectives in sustainability transitions. This panel will feature senior scholars from diverse backgrounds within the UK who will discuss the interplay of innovation economics and the need to decolonize frameworks in sustainability transitions. After the panel, the focus will shift to interactive working groups/ breakout sessions. These breakout sessions will allow participants to dive deeper into the themes raised in the panel, encouraging cross-regional collaboration and critical discussions on how innovation economics can be reimagined to support equitable and just transitions. Participants will be asked to explore key questions, such as:

• How can decolonizing perspectives inform innovation strategies for sustainability?
• How can alternative economic models, such as circular economies or community wealth-building, contribute to more equitable and sustainable outcomes globally?
• In what ways can international cooperation and policy reforms address the systemic inequalities perpetuated by current economic models?
• How can we challenge and transform practices that perpetuate Global North-South inequities, fostering a more equitable world through decolonizing perspectives?
• How can state and non-state actors leverage innovation-driven economic policies and mechanisms to promote just sustainability transitions in the Global South?

The breakout sessions will culminate in a plenary session, where each group will share their key takeaways and ideas. This will help synthesize the discussions and identify actionable insights and potential areas for future collaboration.