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This doctoral research is located in the branch of sustainability sciences that has the realisation of sustainable development as its core subject of research. The most broadly accepted notion of sustainable development is that which evolves along the resolutions, declarations, and reports from international processes in the framework of the United Nations (UN). The consensual outputs from such processes feature global-generalised and context-free perspectives. However, implementation requires action at diverse and context-rich local levels as well. Moreover, while in such UN processes national states are the only contractual parties, it is increasingly recognised that other (‘nonstate’) actors are crucial to sustainability. The research presented here places the attention on bottom-up initiatives that are advancing innovative ways to tackle universal access to clean energy and to strengthen small-scale family farmers. This means, the focus is on bottom-up initiatives advancing local implementation of global sustainability targets, more precisely, targets that make part of the Sustainable Development Goals two and seven (SDG 2 and SDG7). The research asks how such bottom-up initiatives can contribute to the diffusion of sustainability innovations, thereby also contributing to social change. Three aims are derived out of that central question: • Analytical: To understand the role of bottom-up initiatives in the diffusion of sustainability innovations and in the thereby involved social changes. • Transformative: To contribute with my research to the actual diffusion of sustainability innovations. • Methodological: To outline a research approach that provides a solid conceptual and methodological framework for attaining the analytical and transformative aims. Conceptually, the research builds on theoretical insights from diverse strands of the broad field of sustainability transitions – mostly on conceptualisations from transition management, strategic niche management, and grassroots innovations – as well as on conceptual and methodological advances in transdisciplinary and in transformative research. The doctoral research comprises four single studies, in which the notion of diffusion is explored at different scopes of social scales. It begins with a thorough analysis of diffusion programs of domestic biodigesters to rural households in countries of the global south. The focus is on the process by which this specific technical inno0vation results integrated (or not) into the daily realities of single rural households, that is, the adoption process. In the second study, the attention is on energy supply models based on different decentralised renewable technologies. Central to these models is the building of new (or strengthening of existing) local socioeconomic structures that can assume and ensure the proper operation and supply of energy services. The interest in this study is on the strategies that organisations implementing community-based energy projects apply to support the realisation of such local structures. The third study focuses on a network of bottom-up initiatives that have been advancing alternative approaches to family farming in Colombia. The network mainly comprises farmers associations, other organisations from civil society, and researchers who had been collaborating and experimenting with innovations in different innovation fields such as technical, organisational, financial, and commercialisation schemes. The aim of this third study is to provide insights into the challenges and difficulties faced by these actors in broadening the diffusion of the innovations they have been advancing. To perform this study, a methodological strategy is applied that combines a transdisciplinary mutual learning format with qualitative content analysis techniques. The fourth and last study is a conceptual disquisition. It develops a conceptual framework that (a) provides better accounts for the particularities of endeavours aimed at the diffusion of knowledge and practices from the bottom-up across local contexts and social scales, and (b) advances first conceptual steps towards an explicit account for the role that innovation research (and innovation researchers) can assume for the actual realisation of diffusion. The main findings or contributions of the doctoral research can be categorised into four subjects: 1) Bottom-up initiatives contribute to the diffusion of sustainable innovations by: (a) mobilising transformative resources for inducing diffusion in their scope of action; both their own as well as others’ resources; and (b) creating spaces for experimentation in which interventions can be tested (and if necessary adjusted) in order to ensure the proper deployment of innovations. 2) In their efforts to advance the diffusion of sustainability innovations, bottom-up initiatives contribute to social changes for (a) ensuring the effective deployment of the innovations, for instance: • by supporting change in the sociotechnical configurations that enable and constrain the daily practices of single households, in a way that permits the innovation’s proper operation; and • by reshaping local socioeconomic structures in order to ensure and sustain the supply of services and goods linked to the implemented innovation; (b) building local available storage of transformative resources, that is, the consolidation of local organisational structures that facilitate the building and binding of knowledge, financial capital, people’s skills, access to networks among other resources. Moreover, knowledge and practices from the bottom-up can transit to other social scales, and in this way contribute to social changes beyond their localities. 3) A conceptualisation of innovation diffusion, in which the work of academic researchers studying innovation is a constitutive part of transdisciplinary knowledge articulations that promote diffusion. In this way transdisciplinary research alliances can be envisioned in which researchers investigate about, with, and for bottom-up initiatives. 4) Contributions to the consolidation, systematisation, and dissemination of strategies that are applied by farmers associations in order to strength the economic, social, environmental, and cultural dimensions of Colombian family farmers. The contours of two research horizons for further research are outlined, they can be briefly described as: (a) explorations of diffusion beyond bottom-up localities involving changes of socio-political structures and (b) the development of conceptual and methodological frameworks for the realisation of bottom-up transformative research alliances.
