Toward ranking interventions for Technological Innovation Systems via the concept of Leverage Points

Abstract

The Technological Innovation Systems (TIS) approach provides a conceptual framework to find ways to stimulate technological innovation. It prescribes that interventions should be focused on alleviating systemic problems that cause unsatisfactory system performance. Although literature provides guidelines to identify systemic problems and formulate options for intervention, the framework is less developed in relation to choosing between these intervention options and deciding on how to combine them into a coherent set. Inspiration is found from a ranking that relates to the concept of leverage points from System Dynamics. After an exploration of conceptual links between the TIS and System Dynamics frameworks, a modified ranking for the TIS-framework is proposed. The proposed ranking may inform the choice between different types of intervention options for a TIS and for creating coherent intervention sets. This is illustrated by discussing two intervention sets aimed to improve the energy-efficiency of existing houses in the Netherlands.