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CenSES annual report 2013
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RA4 consists of four work packages:
•
WP1 Commercialization of research
•
WP2 Innovation processes and innovation
systems
•
WP3 Local and regional barriers and strategies
•
WP4 Public perceptions and engagement –
technological citizenship
Research in 2013
Research on innovation, commercialization and public
engagement covers a wide range of topics. First, inno-
vation research is dominated by system perspectives
which have led to a number of innovation systems
models at national, regional, sectorial and technologi-
cal levels of analysis.
RA 4 Innovation, Commercialization and Public
Engagement
The development of a Norwegian wind
power supplier industry
Norwegian firms have become involved in the emerg-
ing offshore wind power markets in the UK, Germany
and other nearby countries. Approximately 150 Nor-
wegian companies are involved in the offshore wind
industry (Multiconsult, 2012), but the majority of these
are doing offshore wind as a part-time activity.
According to Hansen and Steen (2011), 70% of the
Norwegian firms involved in offshore wind are primar-
ily involved in activities in the offshore oil and gas
sector. Cross-sectorial initiatives and the actions and
strategies of energy incumbents are important to
sustainable energy transitions, but limited research
has looked into how and why incumbents become
involved in emerging sectors, and the impact of their
involvement. We have looked into the dynamics be-
tween the mature oil and gas sector and the emerging
offshore wind sector. This research is based on exten-
sive qualitative fieldwork including interviews as well
as online surveys.
Focusing on how knowledge and other resources
from the offshore oil and gas sector come into play in
the offshore wind sector, the paper ‘Same Sea, Differ-
ent Ponds’ (Steen & Hansen, 2013) studies knowledge
spillovers and relatedness. It is commonly assumed
that the emerging offshore wind sector is related –
and thereby has a lot to learn – from the significantly
more mature offshore oil and gas sector. However,
while industrial sectors may be classified as related
because they have similar inputs and/or outputs, they
may still be very different with regard to how know-
ledge is applied, production methods, institutions,
organization of value chains, need for public support
and so on.
In ‘Energy Undercurrents’ (Hansen & Steen, in review)
the question is rather why offshore oil and gas sector
firms engage in offshore wind. We find that offshore
wind is partly framed as business-as-usual by the off-
shore oil and gas sector firms. Offshore wind repre-
sents an opportunity to extend and reutilize resources
in a new market, and to position and develop resourc-
es for a future market. Going beyond the business-as-
usual frame we also find that involvement in offshore
wind also is seen as an opportunity to develop and at-
tract human resources for use in the oil and gas sector.
By investing in offshore wind, oil and gas firms appear
more attractive in the eyes of existing and potential
employees. This is not primarily due to a more envi-
ronmental profile, but because the emerging offshore
wind sector is seen as a domain of intrinsically exciting
cases of technology and business development.
In RA 4 we focus on how knowledge based firms get
access to and how they use resources, including finan-
cial, physical, human and organizational resources.