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Review

Beyond Innovation Niches: A Social Sciences Review of System Building Perspectives in Sustainability Transitions

by
Philippe Hamman
1,2,*,
Patricia Schneider
2 and
Céline Monicolle
2
1
Faculty of Social Sciences, Institute for Urban and Regional Development, University of Strasbourg, 67000 Strasbourg, France
2
SAGE Research Unit (Societies, Actors and Government in Europe), University of Strasbourg-CNRS-INRAE-UHA-ENGEES, 67000 Strasbourg, France
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Societies 2025, 15(11), 312; https://doi.org/10.3390/soc15110312
Submission received: 28 August 2025 / Revised: 5 November 2025 / Accepted: 6 November 2025 / Published: 11 November 2025
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Abstract

Amid mounting calls for socio-ecological transition, many social sciences studies have been exploring the processes of societal change. The well-known Science Technology Society studies (STS) approach focuses on the diffusion of innovation niches as an open-ended process ultimately leading to the stabilization of a new regime. Other works have suggested reversing the perspective, i.e., ‘thinking about transitions from the end’. This is a defining characteristic of system building perspectives, which are inherently goal- and sustainability-oriented. This paper presents the state of the art in the social sciences based on a review of international academic journals in English. We use both quantitative and qualitative approaches. Using Web of Science data collected for a period of ten years and the free software IRaMuTeQ (version 2), we have conducted statistical, similarity, and textual analyses of a corpus of 151 texts, following the PRISMA methodology. We discuss the findings of the lexicometric analysis by looking at the content of the article abstracts. While system building is not always mentioned as such, this new perspective is reflected in the literature, especially in research on the energy and food transition, in two main ways: (i) the procedural and substantive dimensions of sustainability transition are both taken into account; (ii) the issue of governance occupies a central place—involving the definition of appropriate instrument mixes and policy mixes—given the need to deal with stakeholders with diverging interests and values rather than only focusing on technological innovations.

1. Introduction

Calls for ecological transition have been voiced with increasing urgency over the past few years, and sustainability has become a dominant concern [1,2], not only among environmental activists, but also in the discourses of policymakers and economic stakeholders. A number of local initiatives, such as citizen energy cooperatives, show how such dynamics are both socially embedded—capacities to act are unevenly distributed along socio-economic dividing lines—and locally situated—sustainability initiatives develop between strong local roots and broader networks [3]. Time must also be considered, as sustainability action operates along three distinct time frames: the long-term project, from inception to actual implementation, shorter political time periods, between elections, and non-linear, social time, i.e., the time it takes individuals to embrace or reject innovations, depending on their social position (whether they are citizens, residents, living near a new installation, and so on) [4,5]. While transition can be defined as a move from an initial situation to one considered to be better, no single path can be identified, whether in terms of time, space, or social context.
To address the issue of socio-environmental change, Science Technology Society studies (STS) have developed the three concepts of niche, regime, and landscape, also used in studies based on the multi-level perspective (MLP) framework [6]. This model measures the degree of inclusiveness of policies emanating from the surrounding landscape and their capacity to “go beyond” innovation niches and lead to redefinitions of the prevailing regime, i.e., transition. It has been very useful in analyzing a variety of sectors, such as the agro-food transition [7] or tourism [8].
The model may, however, be criticized for two main reasons. First, it remains mostly concerned with technological change and does not appear to be the best suited to the study of local dynamics and stakeholder interactions. On the one hand, multi-level perspectives often do not pay enough attention to the spatial and political aspects of transition and can come close to purely managerial approaches [9] (pp. 3, 6–7). On the other hand, when it comes to analyzing stakeholders’ differing capacities, Bourdieu’s field theory can be used to shed light on the dynamic processes of competition between “dominant” and “dominated” players, the established and the outsiders, for control over a social field. In this particular context, it might reveal how calls for ecological transition have sometimes amounted to mere efforts to “green the poor”, i.e., exhort lower-income households to change their behavior by calling on their moral responsibility while obscuring social inequalities [10]. This perspective is, however, sometimes considered too dualistic and/or socio-centric to give a full picture of the relations between society and nature in the Anthropocene.
Secondly, looking at innovation niches to analyze transition means adopting an incremental or experimental approach to change, i.e., paying attention to innovative but limited technologies, which might result in changes that are gradual and/or driven by pioneers or elites. What remains to be explored is to what extent initiatives that are deemed exemplary but have limited scope can become mainstream, whether one thinks of their actual field of action or of the social position of the project leaders or stakeholders involved. Eco-neighborhoods are a case in point: while they can be held up as outstanding models due to their high-performance buildings and focus on improving eco-friendly transportation instead of car use, they have mostly attracted middle- and upper-class residents. Freiburg-im-Breisgau’s Solarsiedlung is, for instance, considered in Europe to be a “best-practice” model despite its lack of social diversity [11]. Based on this, Köhler et al. [12] have argued that only “radical shifts to new kinds of socio-technical systems [can be] called ‘sustainability transitions’”.
Olbrich and Bauknecht therefore suggest “shifting the perspective from developing alternatives and destabilization to system building and thus to ‘thinking about transitions from the end’, i.e., the ‘final’ system configuration that is to be achieved and its sustainability” [13] (p. 8). Taking such an approach has two major advantages from a social sciences perspective. First, it allows for a more in-depth analysis of the governance of sustainability transitions and use of policy mixes. So far, studies of sustainability transition have mainly made use of an STS framework to analyze the role of policy mixes in shaping socio-technical systems towards sustainability, i.e., the gradual diffusion of innovations until they manage to destabilize the incumbent system. Yet, it is not enough to identify different possible instrument mixes from a procedural standpoint (how to proceed). What must be examined is “the renewed directionality of socio-technical systems” [14] and of policy designs, strategies, and processes more generally. Transitions are indeed fundamentally complex processes, occurring along different time frames [15] and involving hierarchy issues in the interplay between institutions and individual stakeholders [16].
Secondly, as Olbrich and Bauknecht underline [13] (p. 7), taking this approach means that “the focus shifts from developing alternatives, diffusing them, and disrupting the incumbent system to building new functioning and sustainable systems that meet concrete targets”, i.e., to using a goal-oriented frame: whereas STS and MLP “use an open-ended approach to transitions”, a system building perspective is based on the idea that “transitions should lead to a sustainable system” [13] (p. 2). In this respect, using a system building perspective makes it possible to pay attention both to the goals and contents of sustainability (“what to sustain”) and to the processes involved to achieve sustainability (“how”), bearing in mind that “sustainability aims at transforming socio-ecological metabolisms in such a way that they take into account the limitedness and fragility of Earth. […] What to sustain and how is to be identified through social learning processes” [17] (p. 348).
The line of reasoning is as follows: if sustainability can be commonly defined as a “state in which the needs of all members of the biosphere are met without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs” [18] (p. 137), then often, the literature tends to consider the current development paradigm as unsustainable because it is reaching its limits, but in fact it is precisely because it is reaching its limits that it is unsustainable. Continuous change is therefore necessary, drawing attention to the need for a sustainability transition, which is inevitably system-oriented: since sustainability stems from the complex interactions of social, environmental, and economic elements and parts, a systems approach considering relationships and processes is necessary. At the same time, it is important that the functions performed by the systems are not arbitrary but rather contribute to the achievement of specific goals. It is therefore essential to have well-defined goals that provide a starting point for the design and continuous improvement of activities and processes—as sustainability can be understood as both a goal (result to be achieved) and a process, the essence of which is the achievement of the intended or desired result through a series of interrelated or interacting activities that use resources. On the contrary, lock-in mechanisms foster the status quo: “For sustainability transitions, this means that lock-in mechanisms reinforcing the persistent dominance of the current socio-technical configuration need to be unlocked to move to a more sustainable future” [19].
In this paper, we offer a review of English-language studies published in international academic journals in order to understand the place of system building perspectives in current sustainability transition studies in the field of the social sciences. In this review of the literature, we do not take for granted or seek to justify the rise of a new field of research but only aim at understanding to what subject areas and in what ways system building perspectives or related approaches are currently applied. This paper advocates for a development paradigm that promotes a better understanding of the interrelationships involved in the sustainability transition. It is a topical issue, given that socio-ecological transition and the promotion of sustainable development are becoming increasingly important as we face the worsening consequences and challenges caused by the current world system, unsustainable socio-economic structures, practices, and attitudes. In Section 2, we define our methodological approach, then present the main results of a corpus-based lexicometric analysis (Section 3) and discuss them based on a cross-sectional reading of the article abstracts (Section 4). Section 5 concludes and suggests some avenues for future research.

2. Materials and Methods

Papers were selected following a single protocol. The goal was to obtain solidly grounded findings as to overarching themes and structuring debates. The process was broken down into three methodological stages.

2.1. Constitution of the Corpus

This review is based on a structured process of identification and selection of relevant social sciences academic literature on sustainability transitions, with a particular focus on system building. The corpus was constituted using the systematic PRISMA method (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) (Figure 1) through the following steps:

2.1.1. Database Selection

The Web of Science database was chosen for its extensive coverage of articles in social sciences and related fields. Access was provided via the portal of the French National Center for Scientific Research BibCNRS SHS (https://bib.cnrs.fr/, accessed on 25 June 2024: Access portal to documentary resources in the humanities and social sciences), ensuring a wide selection of academic resources.

2.1.2. Defining the Search Period

The literature search was conducted for articles published between 1 January 2015 and 25 June 2024. This latter date is linked to the EUCOR project “System Building as Missing Link in Sustainability Transitions” (2024–2025), which served as the basis for our review. This period allows for the inclusion of recent research while offering a long enough time frame to observe developments in the field.

2.1.3. Keyword Selection and Search Strategy

First, we tested a thematic search using the two keywords system build* AND transition (i.e., build and its compounds), which yielded 12,812 results. Then a more precise keyword search strategy was developed, organized around five categories:
  • System-related terms: system OR regime OR stabilization OR alignment
  • Development-related terms: build* OR design
  • Transition-related terms: transition OR transformation
  • Sustainability-related terms: sustainab*
  • Challenge-related terms: lock-in OR uncertainties
The search was executed in “all fields” in the Web of Science database, yielding 654 articles, of which 399 provided the full text. To ensure methodological consistency and allow for checks, we only selected articles accessible in full-text versions via Web of Science (from open-access journals or publications accessible through the BibCNRS SHS portal).

2.1.4. Literature Assessment: Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria

The selection of articles was guided by specific criteria: only English-language full-text academic articles were included. Publications were excluded if they were not in English, did not explicitly address system or regime stabilization, sustainability, lock-in, or uncertainties, or were book chapters or editorials. After applying these criteria, 151 articles were retained for analysis. For each article, the journal name, title, year of publication, and abstract were recorded.

2.2. Statistical and Lexicometric Analysis

We used the free software IRaMuTeQ (version 2), which compiles occurrences while accounting for term proximities and offers graphical representations in the form of word clouds, similarity analyses, and descending hierarchical classification (DHC). The first step involved formatting the corpora to ensure compatibility with the software and assigning illustrative variables, such as publication date, to each text.

2.2.1. Preprocessing and Text Standardization

The vocabulary contained in the abstracts used for the analysis was lemmatized by reducing verbs to their infinitive form, nouns to the singular, and adjectives to the singular masculine form. Only nouns, adjectives, unrecognized forms, adverbs, and participles were included in the analysis. Acronyms appearing in the abstracts were expanded for clarity, while noun plurals were reduced to their singular forms. To ensure consistency, closely related terms with equivalent meanings were manually standardized (e.g., ‘sustainable’ and ‘sustainability’, ‘technical’ and ‘technology’, etc.). Additionally, the text was converted to British English to avoid spelling inconsistencies, ensuring that lexically identical words, despite differences in spelling, were analyzed as a single entity. Furthermore, hyphens were replaced with underscores to ensure proper recognition of compound terms by the software.

2.2.2. Lexical Analysis and Visualization

Word frequency analysis was conducted to highlight the most recurrent terms, which were then visualized through a word cloud. To better understand lexical proximities, a similarity analysis was performed to map the strength of connections between key terms, revealing lexical networks that indicate thematic associations in the corpus.

2.2.3. Descending Hierarchical Classification (DHC)

For the lexicometric analysis of the corpus, the DHC method developed by Max Reinert [21] was applied. This method involves segmenting texts into sequences of approximately 40 occurrences (40 word forms). As Emmanuel Marty explains, “this classification is based on the segmentation of texts into segments of approximately 40 occurrences [in the linear order of the text], followed by the construction of a two-dimensional lexical table that analyzes these segments on the basis of the forms […] that compose them, after they have been lemmatized” [22] (pp. 43–44).
Text segments were constructed based both on size and punctuation. The IRaMuTeQ software (version 2) determines the optimal size/punctuation ratio in order to generate segments of relatively homogeneous size while preserving linguistic structure as far as possible. Priority is given to punctuation marks in the following order: period (“.”), question mark (“?”), exclamation mark (“!”), followed by semicolon (“;”), colon (“:”), comma (“,”), and finally the space character.
The classification is based on a matrix that calculates the distribution of forms across segments, allowing for the identification of statistically significant associations using chi-square values. Dendrograms were generated to visualize the resulting lexical classes and the most significant terms characterizing each class. These terms reflect the strength of association between specific words and their respective classes. This process made it possible to identify meaningful conceptual clusters, offering insight into social representations [22,23].
IRaMuTeQ (version 2) identifies characteristic text segments for each class, regardless of the specific line selected. These segments can be ranked using two approaches: an absolute score, based on the total chi2 values of the active forms within the segment, and a relative score, based on the average chi2 value per active form. In this analysis, text segments were selected using the absolute chi2 values, in order to highlight the segments most strongly associated with each class.

2.3. Qualitative Analysis of Abstracts

This process resulted in the identification of three sub-corpora, corresponding to the themes of Food, Energy, and No specific theme. We decided to assign one of these thematic categories to each paper to determine its primary focus after carefully reading the abstract. In this second stage, only food and energy-related papers were considered. Abstracts thematically classified as Food or Energy were included in the qualitative analysis; others without a specific theme were excluded.
Our aim was to complement the lexicometric analysis through a qualitative review of those abstracts. The articles were classified into the two thematic groups Energy (55 articles) and Food (28 articles). Each abstract was carefully analyzed to identify key themes and concepts on an article-by-article basis, with the aim of contextualizing them within the broader framework of system building in sustainability transitions and drawing comparisons between the two thematic sub-corpora Energy and Food.
We used two tables, with the rows listing authors and publication years, and the columns indicating the relevant conceptual themes (see Table A1 and Table A2). A dedicated column “scale” was included in both tables to indicate the geographical scope of the study (country) or to specify whether the article was a review. To indicate whether a concept appeared in an abstract, we used a green/orange color code—green signifying the presence of the concept, and orange its absence. In the two tables, nine categories were considered as structuring elements, resonating with the conceptual framework of system building identified by the lexicometric analysis. These categories are as follows: Innovation, Lock-in, System, Uncertainty, Transition, Transformation and Change, Policy and Governance, Design, and Future. In the food-related table, a tenth category—Collaboration—was added to the above-mentioned ones.

3. Results from the Corpus-Based Lexicometric Analysis

We combined statistical, similarity, and textual analyses of the corpus. This enabled us to progressively refine our results and identify characteristic system building processes and perspectives as well as their main sustainability objectives, which de facto largely correspond to the energy and food sectors.

3.1. Statistical Analysis

First, a statistical analysis was performed. In 151 texts, 4398 forms were defined from 37,735 occurrences, including 1929 hapaxes (words in the corpus that appear only once, corresponding to 5.11% of occurrences and 43.86% of active forms). The 50 most frequent active forms in the corpus (by count) are featured in Table 1, as follows:
The concepts that correspond to the query in the Web of Science database can be seen in bold type. Among the top 50 most frequent active forms, the following do not appear: regime, stabilization and alignment.
More precisely, the word ‘regime’ appears at rank 104, with 39 occurrences, which does not indicate a central position in the corpus; ‘stability’ corresponds to rank 771 and 5 occurrences, and ‘alignment’ to rank 830 and 5 occurrences, suggesting that these notions are not statistically significant within the dataset. Two key points can be drawn from this first statistical analysis and the resulting word cloud (Figure 2).
First, the notion of ‘system’ clearly emerges as a key term in the corpus, linked to the concept of ‘transition’. The notion of ‘system building’ appears less clearly; the generic term ‘build’ appears 84 times while ‘system’ appears 389 times, which shows that the coupling is far from systematic. The term ‘niche’, which is not part of the query, only appears at rank 322 (with 15 occurrences)—indicating that the corpus does not have a bias towards the STS perspective—and that this latter perspective is not regarded as a dominant or unique one in the literature either.
Second, there is a strong focus on sectoral issues (‘sector’ at rank 17, 103 occurrences—in bold italics), specifically related to energy (‘energy’ at rank 3, ‘renewable’ at rank 32) but also to a lesser degree to food (‘crop’ at rank 45, ‘food’ at rank 50—also in bold italics), although the queries did not specify any particular sector. This underlines the fact that a system building approach is goal-oriented, and links procedures and contents. This confirms Olbrich and Bauknecht’s suggestion [13] that building a new sustainable system requires achieving systemic targets. This is clearly the case in the energy and food sectors: for instance, in the first case, reaching zero net emissions constitutes a first measurable target, while in the second case, an important objective is to give up the use of chemical pesticides or the model of megafarms for industrial intensive battery breeding. However, (i) cross-sectoral issues do not directly emerge in a systemic dimension; for example, the term ‘nexus’ (the notion of the water–food–energy nexus is commonly used in academic research) only appears at rank 987 by count, with only 4 occurrences, which is not significant; (ii) there are no other sectors emerging in the corpus. This suggests that in the literature, the issue of “system building” in sustainability transitions is related to these two sectors, particularly to the energy transition. This also seems to confirm that a system building approach depends on the definition of clear and quantifiable sector-specific goals, such as reaching zero net emissions.

3.2. Similarity Analysis

A similarity analysis allows us to go into greater detail. As we can see in Figure 3, two main lexical fields emerge, one around ‘system’ and the other around ‘transition’, linked by the notion of ‘sustainability’.
There is a strong connection between ‘system’ and ‘design’ (rank 6, 196 occurrences), corresponding to a related cluster (i.e., system design). This is also where the term ‘build’ appears, potentially evoking the notion of ‘system building’, as do the terms ‘process’ and ‘innovation’. In this regard, it should be noted that the notion of innovation (rank 7, 155 occurrences) is not systematically associated with ‘niche’, which is less prominent (rank 322, 15 occurrences), while the notion of ‘regime’ (rank 104, 39 occurrences) appears in proximity to ‘system’ within the same cluster. Thus, it seems feasible to reason in terms of both ‘system’ and ‘regime’, given that the latter term commonly refers to STS perspectives but bearing in mind that the system building approach reverses the order of reasoning by starting with the desired configuration to be achieved, i.e., a new goal-focused sustainability regime. Furthermore, the lexical field related to food also appears within the cluster around ‘system’: ‘food’, ‘farmer’, ‘crop’, ‘agriculture’, etc.
The second main cluster around ‘transition’ includes academic vocabulary and two secondary clusters around the notions of ‘policy’ and ‘uncertainty’. From this, a significant lexical field also emerges around the ‘energy’ sector (with the term ‘sector’ linked to it), clearly connected to the previous one through the notion of energy transition (thick line between both terms). In this ‘energy’ cluster, ‘low carbon’ stands out (strong link between the two terms), as well as economic terms (‘market’, ‘investment’, ‘business model’, ‘scenario’, etc.), which can be associated with net-zero-related viability and measurement issues.

3.3. Textual Analysis

To go deeper, we conducted a textual analysis using the DHC method. The dendrogram (Figure 4) confirms that the system building perspective combines a substantive dimension (what it concerns and for which purpose, i.e., what sectors are involved) and a procedural one (how the transition unfolds). Each class can then be subjected to similarity analysis.
To the right of the dendrogram, the text classes corresponding to a sectoral entry point appear distinctively. The first class that stands out at the top of the classification tree is Class 1: it identifies the agricultural and agro-food system, with particular attention to diversification (‘diversification’, ‘diversify’…) and innovation (‘innovation’) in agricultural activities (‘crop’, ‘farmer’, ‘farm’, ‘agronomic’…) and connections drawn with ecology (‘agroecological’, ‘nature_inclusive_agriculture’) and food (‘agrifood’, ‘vegetable’…). This is confirmed by the fact that the significant segments of Class 1 (i.e., the extracts selected by the IRaMuTeQ (version 2) analyzing process as the most outstanding) all correspond to texts from the food sub-corpus (Table 2).
The similarity analysis of Class 1 (Figure 5) reveals a systemic reading (right cluster ‘system’) related to the thematic field of agricultural crops (cluster ‘crop’ and associated secondary cluster: ‘farm’). The notion of ‘system’ links references to agriculture (clusters ‘crop’, ‘farm’) and food and agro-ecological issues—as represented in particular by the cluster ‘innovation’/‘agroecological’ at the top of the figure—and this involves innovations, to the extent that the cluster ‘innovation’ is the most strongly connected to the central linguistic field of ‘system’ (thick line).
Another branch in the dendrogram identifies the energy sector, and divides into Classes 4 and 5. Class 5, with 13.4% of the classified information, addresses the issue of greenhouse gas emissions and their reduction (‘emission’, ‘greenhouse_gas_emissions’, ‘reduction’, ‘carbon’, ‘decarbonisation’, ‘mitigation’), particularly in relation to fossil fuels (‘coal’, ‘carbon’, ‘fuel’); while Class 4 specifies the alternatives offered by renewable energies (‘electricity’, ‘renewable’, ‘hydrogen’, ‘hydrogen_supply_chain’, ‘solar’, ‘solar_photovoltaic’…) and their concrete implementation on a territorial and individual scale (‘household’, ‘distributed_energy_systems’, ‘ownership’, ‘prosumers’). This is confirmed by the significant segments in Classes 4 and 5, the vast majority of which refer to texts in the energy sub-corpus (with very few extracts from the non-themed sub-corpus).
The similarity analysis presents Class 5 in a “necklace” form (Figure 6). This means that there is not a dominant cluster distributing second-order clusters in a “star” configuration, i.e., essentially connected to this central cluster, but successive clusters connected to each other by the thematic thread of ‘energy’—that is to say, multiple interrelations illustrated by the branches that intersect at the center of the figure: ‘sector’, ‘carbon’ (‘lock_in’ on one side, and ‘low’ on the other side), ‘climate’ (on climate objectives: ‘commitment’, ‘Paris’ ‘agreement’…), ‘policy’ (regarding ‘decarbonisation’ in particular), and ‘emission’, again with a focus on reducing greenhouse gas emissions (‘reduction’, ‘greenhouse_gas_emissions’).
The similarity analysis for Class 4 (Figure 7) also centers around ‘energy’ as a central cluster, strongly linked (thick line) to renewables (‘renewable’, with the issue of ‘hydrogen’/‘hydrogen_supply_chain’ clearly in evidence, which brings us back to the net zero target) and to the field of electricity (cluster ‘electricity’, with a secondary cluster dedicated to ‘prosumers’ and ‘distributed_energy_systems’). In particular, the theme of (renewable) energy revolves around issues of ‘technology’, ‘transport’, ‘supply’, ‘grid’ and market (especially for ‘low’ ‘carbon’ and ‘solar’ energies vs. ‘fossil’ ‘fuel’), in terms of both development and barriers.
On the left side of the dendrogram, the classification tree divides into two branches: one pertaining to the procedural aspects of socio-ecological transition and its governance, and the other related to the study of these aspects, as the corpus consists of academic articles. These two branches are further subdivided into, respectively, three (classes 6, 7 and 8) and two (classes 2 and 3) lexical classes.
Specifically, Classes 6 and 7 identify the pathways of ‘socioecological’ and climate change particularly in urban environments (‘urban’, ‘municipality’). Both classes notably address resilience (‘resilience’, ‘crisis’) and adaptation (‘adapt’, significant in both lexical classes) with systemic perspectives (‘complex’, ‘system’, ‘ecosystem’), while highlighting issues of temporal dynamics (‘event’, ‘evolution’, ‘change’, ‘regenerative’…) and their management. In this context, significant segments include extracts from the food and energy sub-corpora, albeit not exclusively.
To go further, a similarity analysis of Classes 6 and 7 (Figure 8 and Figure 9) reveals the centrality of the notion of ‘system’. The key features are as follows: the systemic approach is particularly related to ‘design’, ‘transition’—including ‘uncertainty’ and ‘long’ ‘term’ issues, which are decisive for a system building approach –, ‘sustainability’ (notably around ‘process’ and ‘governance’, as well as ‘potential’ and ‘capability’) and climate change (‘change’ ‘climate’), especially considered in ‘urban’ contexts.
Class 8, with 15.9% of classified information, focuses on the governance of the transformations (‘governance’, ‘procedural’, ‘practice’) mentioned in Classes 6 and 7, with references to the actors (‘institution’, ‘actor’) and scales (‘scale’, ‘place’, ‘level’, ‘regional’) of these procedures and processes, and a special focus on circularity (‘circular’). As a marker of the cross-cutting nature of this governance entry, the significant segments of Class 8 are found in all three sub-corpora of texts: food, energy, and those without a specific theme.
The similarity analysis of Class 8 (Figure 10) visualizes this lexical field of ‘practice’/‘sustainability’/‘governance’ with a structure of interconnected clusters starting from the central cluster ‘sustainability’. Sustainability is understood relationally with references to transformation issues (second central cluster: ‘transformation’). Logically, transformation governance is linked, on the left, to the processes (‘process’, ‘decision’), actors (‘actor’), and levels (‘level’, ‘scale’) involved.
Finally, Classes 2 and 3 explain the ways in which the issues are approached, particularly, as seen in Class 2, in terms of modeling (‘modeling’, ‘quantitative’, ‘model’, ‘simulation’) and foresight (‘future’, ‘scenario’, ‘narrative’), as a way to analyze non-linear transition processes (Class 3: ‘lock_in’, ‘influence’, ‘circular’). The relationship between the substantive and procedural aspects of system building appears once again. While the vocabulary touches more on procedures, in Class 2 there are also references to the energy sector.
The similarity analysis conducted for Class 2 (Figure 11) highlights the rhetoric around ‘transition’ in the energy sector (cluster ‘energy’ connected by a thick line to the ‘transition’ cluster), developed in terms of modeling and scenarios, from a forward-looking perspective, as evidenced by the secondary clusters: ‘model’, ‘modeling’, ‘future’ ‘scenario’, and in relation to the stakeholders involved (‘stakeholder’, ‘design’, ‘participatory’).
As for the similarity analysis of Class 3 (Figure 12), it characterizes the study of sustainability transition processes. The central halo is organized around the notion of ‘transition’—particularly ‘socio-technical’—and also includes the term ‘build’ in close proximity to the central cluster (lower cluster). The central notion of ‘transition’ is related to studies and research models (clusters ‘study’, ‘literature’ ‘review’, ‘research’) and practical processes (right and left secondary clusters: ‘actor’, ‘market’, ‘business’ ‘innovation’), with a significant focus on the barriers highlighted in the top cluster (‘lock_in’, ‘barrier’, ‘structure’).

4. Discussion

We discuss the lexicometric results on the basis of a qualitative analysis of the article abstracts, focusing on papers explicitly devoted to the fields of energy and food, which emerged as salient in the overall corpus, in order to draw parallels between these two sectors. To this end, we constructed two summary tables, one focused on food and the other on energy (Table A1 and Table A2). Their analysis reveals that while there are some distinctions in emphasis, the literature on both themes mobilizes a relatively identical set of concepts when discussing sustainability transitions from a system building viewpoint.

4.1. Key Concepts Characterizing Sustainability Transitions in Food and Energy Literature: Overlaps and Distinctions

In the food literature under study, the most dominant concepts are ‘system’, ‘transformation’/‘change’, ‘design’, ‘transition’ and ‘innovation’. The frequent reference to ‘system’ suggests a strong focus on holistic and systemic thinking in food sustainability research indeed. This aligns with the idea that sustainable food transitions require reconfigurations of interconnected systems. The frequent occurrence of notions related to ‘transformation’/‘change’—19 times across the 28 abstracts—reinforces the idea that the food sector requires substantial restructuring. This is reflected in the recurring references within the abstracts to elements such as structural change [24], radical or fundamental change [25], and changes in farming practices [26,27,28], indicating that these themes are commonly associated with discussions on targeted change within the food system.
The concept of ‘design’ appears to be associated with intentional planning and innovation at multiple levels. This is supported by references in the abstracts to notions such as coupled innovation design [28], stakeholder-designed innovative systems [29], multi-level coordination in innovation design [27], and cross-sectoral design of solutions [30]. The recurrence of such terms suggests that ‘design’ is often framed as a strategic and action-driven process.
‘Innovation’ also emerges as a key theme in the food-related literature, particularly in connection with technological, agronomic, and organizational advances This is reflected in recurring references to agro-ecological innovations [31], technological innovation [32,33] and systemic and sustainable innovation frameworks [34]. These elements suggest that food system transformation is closely associated with efforts to develop and implement new tools, methods, and models aimed at sustainability. Furthermore, the theme of ‘collaboration’ is unique to the Food table, highlighting the role of collective action [33,35] and co-innovation processes [27,28] in enabling sustainable food system transitions. Finally, the theme of ‘lock-in’ points to an understanding of the technical and socio-technological constraints that inhibit change [26,36,37], highlighting how established actors and practices can resist transition efforts.
In contrast, the energy literature is characterized by frequent occurrences of the themes of ‘transition’ (41 in the 55 abstracts) and ‘system’ (38 and ‘policy’/‘governance’ (40). This reflects a recurrent focus on structural change, systemic configurations, and institutional or regulatory dimensions within these abstracts. The theme of ‘transition’ appears primarily in the context of energy-related transformations, including concepts such as energy transition [38,39,40,41,42,43,44] and socio-technical transitions [45,46,47] but also, in a more pointed way, sustainability transitions [47,48,49,50,51,52] and low-carbon transitions [43,44,53,54]. These transitions are discussed in various sectoral and geographic contexts, including, for instance, urban energy transitions, coal-to-gas transition, and post-carbon transition, suggesting attention to long-term changes in energy production, distribution, and consumption systems, with net zero in mind. The frequent appearance of ‘system’ reflects an emphasis on broader configurations such as energy systems, power systems [55,56], urban energy systems [57], and socio-technical or socio-ecological systems [58,59]. Several abstracts also explicitly refer to system integration [42], net-zero carbon energy systems [51], and multi-sectoral systems (e.g., water-energy-food systems [30]), suggesting that the interconnections between technological, social, and environmental dimensions are taken into account. Mentions of ‘policy’/‘governance’ include references to climate policy [50,60,61], public policy [42,62], policy mixes [63,64], regulatory frameworks [65,66], and governance mechanisms [41,67]. This suggests that policy design and governance structures are addressed as decisive elements in shaping goal-oriented sustainable energy pathways.
Additional recurring concepts in the energy literature considered include ‘innovation’, ‘transformation’/‘change’, and ‘uncertainty’. The theme of ‘innovation’ appears in relation to the development and diffusion of low-carbon technologies [49,68], renewable energy technologies [42,59,67], and smart grid technologies [62], as well as references to disruptive innovation [63,69], technological maturity [52], and business model innovation [46,70]. This suggests that innovation is addressed not only in technological terms, but also in relation to organizational and systemic aspects that need to be transformed to reach the goal of sustainability. ‘Uncertainty’ reflects the complex processes involved and is associated with a range of factors, including technological, policy-related, economic, geopolitical, and legal uncertainties [39,51,55,71,72]. Several abstracts refer to deep uncertainty [73,74] and to uncertainties surrounding the potential impacts of innovations, suggesting that system building research engages with both the unpredictability of specific developments and the broader indeterminacy of transition pathways.

4.2. System Building Perspectives in Food and Energy System Transitions

It is a well-known fact that energy, food, and socio-ecological transitions today rely on technological progress: consider the hydrogen promise (for a study of hydrogen innovations in relation to just transition, see [75]), the localized production of renewable energies (on deep geothermal energy, see [76]), or the issues raised by agricultural anaerobic digestion [77].
Our central objective is to understand how the food and energy literatures integrate the system building perspective—which focuses on constructing sustainable configurations rather than simply stabilizing or scaling innovations. Both Table A1 and Table A2 highlight the importance of understanding this systemic view.
From a system building perspective, food studies appear to emphasize cooperative, actor-driven processes aimed at systemic transformation—strategies such as stakeholder-designed transitions [29] and cross-sectoral coordination [30]. In contrast, the energy literature more frequently references policy and institutional dimensions, including in its discussions of sustainability transitions in energy and technological developments and innovation [42,46,48,78]. This points to a distinction in emphasis regarding the types of actors brought to the forefront: the food literature often highlights collective and co-designed transformation processes, whereas the energy literature more frequently focuses on governance-driven changes shaped by policy and infrastructure.
Across the 83 abstracts from the food and energy sub-corpora, several recurring concepts appear in both fields, suggesting a degree of conceptual overlap in how sustainability transitions are addressed. Common themes include ‘transformation processes’ (46 occurrences), structural barriers such as ‘lock-in’ (25 occurrences), ‘design’ (36 occurrences), and ‘innovation’ (43 occurrences). These recurring occurrences indicate that both the food and the energy literature engage with a similar set of concepts when analyzing sustainability transitions from a system building perspective.
Finally, the lexicometric and qualitative analyses reveal both convergences and distinctions in the framing of sustainability transitions in food and energy studies. In the food sub-corpus, the prominence of ‘system’ reflects an integrated and networked approach to sustainability, where agricultural, food, and innovation processes are interlinked within systemic transformations. This is confirmed by the qualitative analysis that emphasizes collaborative processes and holistic transformation strategies, highlighting the importance of collective actions, stakeholder networks, and intentional planning in fostering sustainable food systems. In contrast, the energy sub-corpus shows the centrality of ‘energy’ and its strong association with ‘transition’, particularly in relation to socio-technical sustainability challenges. This is supported by the prevalence of governance, regulatory frameworks, and technological uncertainties in the qualitative analysis. Despite these distinctions, both fields share core themes such as transformation, innovation, and lock-in (the recognition of structural barriers), suggesting that sustainability transitions are shaped by systemic constraints and the interplay between institutional, technological, and socio-political dynamics—which is precisely what a system building approach is concerned with.

5. Conclusions and Future Directions

5.1. Conclusions

Although the notion of system building is not always explicitly mentioned as such, the social sciences literature discussing sustainability transitions does indeed reflect the new focus introduced by the system building perspective, in contrast to traditional STS or MLP frameworks. Linked to the interdisciplinary field of Science, Technology, and Society (STS) studies, the multi-level perspective (MLP) framework considers that transitions come about through interaction processes starting from niches and corresponding to niche-goal orientation, i.e., actors focus on developing innovations expected in the end to lead to (more) sustainable systems—whereas system building, starting from a system perspective, means that actors focus on a system that is both functioning and sustainable. Our review of the literature has confirmed this and reveals four main features of this new approach.
First, in a system building approach, the procedural and substantive dimensions of sustainability transition are both taken into account, following a goal-oriented perspective that defines a number of targets to be reached and seeks to produce massive change rather than focusing on exemplary niches. In other terms, what matters is not only scalability (which is what MLPs are concerned with) but coordination with a specific sustainability orientation: it is not enough to merely suppose that the new stabilized system would in essence be preferable and more sustainable than the previous one (even though transition does indeed imply a redefined social order and actor alignment).
Second, the definition of what to sustain and how involves selecting the right set of objectification and measurement tools (instrument mixes) and paying attention to the management of change, taking into account different spatial scales and time frames together (policy mixes). The issue of governance is thus central in a system building approach, which fully recognizes the complexity of transition processes (in terms of scale, time, and social context) and the competitive interplay between stakeholders, who often have diverging interests and values, although they might lend their support to technological innovations as such (STS tend to focus on this last point). In other terms, system building perspectives are aware of the need to deal with uncertainties, lock-ins, and path dependency.
Third, this second conclusion might account for the focus on the energy and food sectors in the literature. A system building approach, indeed, does not only point to possible alternatives to the existing situation—as do other approaches interested in the diffusion of innovation niches—but ultimately envisions the institution of a new, rather undefined, system, although not necessarily a sustainable one. On the contrary, it seeks to build a well-defined, sustainable system through the completion of measurable targets (for instance, net zero emissions in the energy sector; or giving up certain inputs and diversifying crops in the food sector).
Fourth, it follows from the above that system building and sustainability can be understood as two inherently interconnected notions: system building is sustainable, otherwise it means stabilization (in an open-ended niche-regime perspective); and sustainability is both an ongoing process and an expected final phase to be reached by achieving some concrete targets. System building perspectives thus have the potential to contribute to bridging the gap between theory- and practice-oriented studies on sustainability transitions.

5.2. Future Directions

Our review and its conclusions leave room for further discussion on the heuristic nature of the concept of system building for thinking about sustainability transitions. Four avenues of research might be explored in greater depth.
First, “thinking about transitions from the end” does not imply believing in some sort of “end of history” or fixed future, especially in the Anthropocene era. A system building approach considers both the processes—i.e., the processes of destabilization/stabilization, (although these are envisioned as much more complex than the linear trajectory from an initial to a new regime, which STS and MLP approaches study)—and the objectives of sustainability transition. This is all the more needed, as the dynamics under study are always in progress, constantly being remade and redefined given the complex interactions and uncertainties involved and the possible emergence of new barriers and opportunities in the process. Nothing is predictable, as social transactions continually need to be made to deal with major dualisms that move the social world: individual/collective, interests/values, tradition/modernity, equality/equity, procedural/distributive justice, etc. [79].
Second, it would be useful to explore further case studies to move beyond the well-documented sectors of energy and food, which have emerged as the main focus of current research. The aim would be to determine whether this is due to a mere ‘snowball’ effect (current studies on these sectors prompt new studies on the same topics) or whether the system building approach can or cannot be applied to other sectors where it is less easy to define concrete sustainability targets. Such research would require taking into account the issue of scale when analyzing different sectors, especially looking at the national or regional contexts in which they operate.
Third, in order to corroborate or qualify the results of this review, multidisciplinary inquiries would be useful, in two directions: (i) comparing the results of this social sciences literature review to other disciplinary approaches, such as economics or environmental geography; and (ii) analyzing sustainable transition studies by cross-referencing their thematic areas with academic disciplines, systematically looking at the authors’ affiliations and the way they present and position their research, in order to better understand by whom specific concepts in sustainability transition research are mobilized and in what ways.
Fourth, from a sociological point of view, our review also raises the issue of the capacity to act: who is able to do system building? This is an important issue that is often overlooked by STS and MLP studies when they consider the transformations of socio-technological systems. System building approaches need to address this question to be able to define what alternatives are possible and how.
The question of individuals’ and social groups’ capacity to embrace these technological innovations and take part in transition is therefore a crucial one, extending previous reflections about how social structures and social inequalities play a role in individuals or groups’ contributions to sustainability transition. System building perspectives, as they pay attention to the governance of transition, must consider the multiple relations between stakeholders with different social positions (and they might have to consider many more actors than in the past, given their systemic reasoning in terms of energy and ecological democracy). In the process, they should not overlook or obscure the fact that the different parties involved are not equal. Who can be seen as a “system builder”? Should we consider that not all individuals can do system building, because to make this possible, a central authority would be needed to coordinate different actors playing a role in the transition, e.g., government/politics? Or should coordination be given a different sense—not only clarifying roles, assigning functions and resources but also considering (diverging) values—to really qualify as system building?

Author Contributions

Conceptualization, P.H.; methodology, P.H. and C.M.; investigation, P.H. and P.S.; resources, P.H., P.S. and C.M.; writing—original draft preparation, P.H. and P.S.; writing—review and editing, P.H. and P.S.; supervision, P.H.; project administration, P.H.; funding acquisition, P.H. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Funding

This research was funded by the Seed Money program “System Building as Missing Link in Sustainability Transitions: Developing, Validating and Reflecting a Framework for the Upper Rhine Region” (2024–2025), which was supported by Eucor—The European Campus. Funding number: SM23_#5_F_SB.

Institutional Review Board Statement

Not applicable.

Informed Consent Statement

Not applicable.

Data Availability Statement

No unpublished data were created in this study. Data sharing is not applicable to this review article.

Acknowledgments

We wish to warmly thank Stéphanie Alkofer, as well as Jean-Yves Bart (Maison interuniversitaire des sciences de l’homme—Alsace, France), for proofreading this article. We also thank the other participants in the Seed Money EUCOR program “System Building as Missing Link in Sustainability Transitions” (2024–2025) for fruitful collective discussions: Dierk Bauknecht (PI, Uni. Freiburg), Caterina Pacini (Uni. Freiburg), Madeleine Antonios (Uni. Freiburg), Basil Bornemann (Uni. Basel), and Machteld Simoens (Uni. Aachen).

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Appendix A

Table A1. Identification of key concepts from the sub-corpus on Energy: Matrix of the 55 abstracts studied.
Table A1. Identification of key concepts from the sub-corpus on Energy: Matrix of the 55 abstracts studied.
ReferencesScaleInnovationLock-InSystemUncertaintyTransitionTransformation/ChangePolicy/GovernanceDesignFuture
Auvinen et al./2023 [64]Finland XXXXXX
Biddau, Rizzoli, Sarrica/2024 [80]Italy X XX
Blumberga, Gravelsins, Blumberga/2022 [81]Russia XX X X
Bolton, Foxon, Hall/2016 [49]United KingdomX XXXXX
Castrejon-Campos, Aye, Hui/2020 [78]/X XXXXX
Chilvers, Longhurst/2016 [53]United Kingdom XXX
Chilvers et al./2017 [65]United Kingdom XXX X X
De Laurentis, Pearson/2021 [41]Italy, Wales, Scotland X X XX
Fisch-Romito et al./2021 [60]Review XX X
Floyd et al./2020 [73]/ XXX X
Hall et al./2020 [70]United KingdomX X X
Hall et al./2022 [46]/X X XXXX
Hansen et al./2017 [82]Denmark, Norway, Finland, SwedenX X X
Heitmann, Pahl-Wostl, Engel/2019 [30]/ XX X
Herreras Martínez et al./2022 [83]NetherlandsX XXX X
Iskandarova et al./2022 [66]France, Switzerland, Great Britain XXXXX
Kivimaa et al./2022 [51]/XXXXX X
Kloppenburg, Boekelo/2019 [40]/X XXXX XX
Knight, Pfeiffer, Scott/2015 [48]/X XX X
Koese et al./2022 [84]/XXX X X X
Korkmaz, Schmid, Fahl/2021 [71]/X XXX XX
Kusumaningdyah, Tezuka, McLellan/2021 [85]/ XXXX X
Lennon, Dunphy, Sanvicente/2019 [67]France, Ireland, Italy, Spain, United KingdomX X X XXX
Li, Trutnevyte, Strachan/2015 [45]ReviewX XXX X
Li, Strachan/2017 [38]/X X XXX X
Li, Trutnevyte/2017 [55]/ XXX X X
Löhr, Mattes/2022 [42]GermanyX X XXX
Malz et al./2023 [61]China, Pakistan, Mozambique XX X
Metze et al./2023 [86]Netherlands XXX X
Moallemi et al./2017 [39]India XX X X
Mossberg, Söderholm, Frishammar/2021 [63]SwedenXX XXX
Muldoon-Smith, Greenhalgh/2019 [87]United Kingdom XX X X
Muza, Debnath/2021 [69]RwandaX X XX
Nik, Perera, Chen/2021 [57]ReviewX XXX X
Nwanekezie, Noble, Poelzer/2022 [54]Canada XX XXX
Oshiro, Fujimori/2021 [88]Japan X XXX
Pahker et al./2024 [47]Estonia XXXXXXX
Paredes-Vergara, Palma-Behnke, Haas/2024 [74]Review XX
Pereira et al./2018 [62]Germany, PortugalX X XXX
Purkus, Gawel, Thrän/2017 [89]Germany, EuropeXX XXXXX
Reda et al./2021 [90]FinlandXXX XX X
Rootzén et al./2023 [91]/ XXX
Seto et al./2016 [92]ReviewXXX X
Sgarbossa et al./2023 [52]ReviewX XXX X
Skoczkowski et al./2018 [50]PolandXX XXXXX
Speich, Chambers, Ulli-Beer/2024 [93]SwitzerlandX X XX X
Van Opstal, Smeets/2022 [72]BelgiumX XX XX
Verrier, Strachan/2024 [44]/X XX
Vishwanathan, Garg/2020 [94]India X X
Weiser et al./2017 [58]/ X X X
Weko, Goldthau/2022 [68]Global SouthXXX XX
Werner, Lazaro/2023 [43]Brazil XXXXXX
Wolsink/2020 [59]ReviewXXX XX X
Xexakis et al./2020 [95]Switzerland XX X X
Zhao, You/2021 [56]United States of America XXX
Color code: green indicates presence of the concept; orange indicates absence of the concept. “X” serves as a checkmark symbol.
Table A2. Identification of key concepts from the sub-corpus on Food: Matrix of the 28 abstracts studied.
Table A2. Identification of key concepts from the sub-corpus on Food: Matrix of the 28 abstracts studied.
ReferencesScaleInnovationLock-InSystemCollaborationUncertaintyTransitionTransformation/ChangePolicy/GovernanceDesignFuture
Baret/2017 [96]BelgiumXXX X
Boulestreau, Casagrande, Navarrete/2021 [26]FranceXXX XXXX
Boulestreau et al./2022 [28]FranceXXXX XX X
Boulestreau, Casagrande, Navarrete/2023 [27]FranceX XX XX X
Cholez, Magrini/2023 [97]EuropeX XX
Contesse et al./2024 [98]Chile XX XX
Dagli/2022 [35]Philippines XXX X
Della Rossa et al./2020 [31]MartiniqueXXX XX X
Drottberger, Melin, Lundgren/2021 [99]SwedenX X XX
Duru, Therond, Fares/2015 [29]ReviewX X XXXXX
Griffon, Hernandez, Ramírez/2021 [100]/ X XX
Heitmann, Pahl-Wostl, Engel/2019 [30]Germany X XX X
Hoogstra et al./2024 [25]Netherlands X X
Kuokkanen et al./2017 [101]Finland XX XXX X
Leclère, Loyce, Jeuffroy/2023 [37]France XX X X
Lluch-Cota, del Monte-Luna, Gurney-Smith/2023 [102]/ X XXXXX
Meynard et al./2017 [32]/XXX X X
Meynard et al./2018 [33]FranceXXXX
Morel et al./2020 [103]EuropeX X XXX
Navarro Garcia et al./2023 [24]Australia X X X X
Palmer, Burton, Gottschamer/
2022 [104]		/ X X X X
Perrin et al./2023 [34]ReviewX X X X X
Prosperi et al./2020 [105]ItalyX X X
Prost et al./2023 [106]Review X XXX XX
Revoyron et al./2022 [36]France, Italy, Sweden XX X
Schmid et al./2024 [107]Western Europe XXX X X
Toffolini, Jeuffroy, Prost/2015 [108]France X X X
Vermunt et al./2022 [109]NetherlandsX X XX
Color code: green indicates presence of the concept; orange indicates absence of the concept. “X” serves as a checkmark symbol.

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Figure 1. PRISMA flow chart of the literature study (© Philippe Hamman and Patricia Schneider. Source: PRISMA 2020 flow diagram [20]. This work is licensed under CC BY 4.0.).
Figure 1. PRISMA flow chart of the literature study (© Philippe Hamman and Patricia Schneider. Source: PRISMA 2020 flow diagram [20]. This work is licensed under CC BY 4.0.).
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Figure 2. Word cloud of the first 600 words.
Figure 2. Word cloud of the first 600 words.
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Figure 3. Similarity analysis: The first 160 occurrences (words occurring 30 times or more). Colors are applied to visually separate lexical fields in the similarity analysis.
Figure 3. Similarity analysis: The first 160 occurrences (words occurring 30 times or more). Colors are applied to visually separate lexical fields in the similarity analysis.
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Figure 4. Hierarchical cluster analysis of text segments into 8 classes (95.20% of segments classified).
Figure 4. Hierarchical cluster analysis of text segments into 8 classes (95.20% of segments classified).
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Societies 15 00312 g005
Figure 5. Similarity analysis of class 1. Colors are applied to visually separate lexical fields in the similarity analysis.
Figure 5. Similarity analysis of class 1. Colors are applied to visually separate lexical fields in the similarity analysis.
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Societies 15 00312 g006
Figure 6. Similarity analysis of class 5. Colors are applied to visually separate lexical fields in the similarity analysis.
Figure 6. Similarity analysis of class 5. Colors are applied to visually separate lexical fields in the similarity analysis.
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Societies 15 00312 g007
Figure 7. Similarity analysis of class 4. Colors are applied to visually separate lexical fields in the similarity analysis.
Figure 7. Similarity analysis of class 4. Colors are applied to visually separate lexical fields in the similarity analysis.
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Societies 15 00312 g008
Figure 8. Similarity analysis of class 6. Colors are applied to visually separate lexical fields in the similarity analysis.
Figure 8. Similarity analysis of class 6. Colors are applied to visually separate lexical fields in the similarity analysis.
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Societies 15 00312 g009
Figure 9. Similarity analysis of class 7. Colors are applied to visually separate lexical fields in the similarity analysis.
Figure 9. Similarity analysis of class 7. Colors are applied to visually separate lexical fields in the similarity analysis.
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Figure 10. Similarity analysis of class 8. Colors are applied to visually separate lexical fields in the similarity analysis.
Figure 10. Similarity analysis of class 8. Colors are applied to visually separate lexical fields in the similarity analysis.
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Societies 15 00312 g011
Figure 11. Similarity analysis of class 2. Colors are applied to visually separate lexical fields in the similarity analysis.
Figure 11. Similarity analysis of class 2. Colors are applied to visually separate lexical fields in the similarity analysis.
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Societies 15 00312 g012
Figure 12. Similarity analysis of class 3. Colors are applied to visually separate lexical fields in the similarity analysis.
Figure 12. Similarity analysis of class 3. Colors are applied to visually separate lexical fields in the similarity analysis.
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Table 1. Identification of the 50 most frequent active forms in the corpus.
Table 1. Identification of the 50 most frequent active forms in the corpus.
1system38918development10235case77
2transition33719support10136practice74
3energy27620research10037technical73
4sustainability23721carbon9838stakeholder70
5policy21522actor9539market70
6design19623analysis9340socio_technical 68
7innovation15524framework9241result 68
8change15325urban9242plan 68
9study15226lock_in8843level 67
10transformation14627model8744social 66
11uncertainty13928identify8545crop66
12process13529build8446decision 66
13base12530technology8347infrastructure 65
14approach11231paper8048show 64
15future10732renewable7949develop 62
16climate10433pathway7950food61
17sector10334challenge78
Concepts appearing in bold correspond to the terms used in the Web of Science database query. Terms in bold italics indicate a salient sectoral dimension relevant to the domains of energy or food.
Table 2. Illustrative example: significant segments of class 1.
Table 2. Illustrative example: significant segments of class 1.
Key Text SegmentsYearThemeScore
Organic mulching cropping system combined with on farm organic mulch production farm coupled innovation crop diversification combined with plot exchange with neighbouring farmer coupled innovation and making soil health status explicitly transparent in field transactions combined with agroecological soil health management agrifood system coupled innovations2023Food1396.35
Tracking down coupled innovations supporting agroecological vegetable crop protection to foster sustainability transition of agrifood systems high pesticide use causes environment and human health hazards yet the change to alternative crop protection practices faces a web of interacting barriers that results in a socio_technical lock_in2022Food1042.37
Our results indicate that support to crop diversification should be tailored according to farmers agronomic economic and work related issues especially at the level of the crop succession and the farm2022Food1007.52
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Hamman, P.; Schneider, P.; Monicolle, C. Beyond Innovation Niches: A Social Sciences Review of System Building Perspectives in Sustainability Transitions. Societies 2025, 15, 312. https://doi.org/10.3390/soc15110312

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Hamman P, Schneider P, Monicolle C. Beyond Innovation Niches: A Social Sciences Review of System Building Perspectives in Sustainability Transitions. Societies. 2025; 15(11):312. https://doi.org/10.3390/soc15110312

Chicago/Turabian Style

Hamman, Philippe, Patricia Schneider, and Céline Monicolle. 2025. "Beyond Innovation Niches: A Social Sciences Review of System Building Perspectives in Sustainability Transitions" Societies 15, no. 11: 312. https://doi.org/10.3390/soc15110312

APA Style

Hamman, P., Schneider, P., & Monicolle, C. (2025). Beyond Innovation Niches: A Social Sciences Review of System Building Perspectives in Sustainability Transitions. Societies, 15(11), 312. https://doi.org/10.3390/soc15110312

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