Centre for the study of innovation policy for industrial transformation, sustainability and digitalization (INTRANSIT)

INTRANSIT has one overall mission: to understand how transformation towards a more sustainable and smarter Norwegian economy can be fostered. To achieve this ambition, INTRANSIT has three aims. First, we investigate the preconditions, drivers and barriers of the ongoing transformation processes towards a smarter and more sustainable development in significant Norwegian economic sectors. Second, INTRANSIT addresses how the growth of new industrial niches can be supported. Here we aim to generate new insights into the relationship between transformations of existing industries and the growth of new ones, and as part of this collaboration between established and new firms. These insights are necessary steps towards the third aim, which is to understand how research and innovation policies can support the development of a smarter, more sustainable and diversified Norwegian economy. INTRANSIT has five interrelated research streams, all targeted at better understanding the multi-level nature of industrial transformations. It focuses on significant Norwegian economic sectors including oil and gas, maritime industry, aqua- and agriculture, process industry and manufacturing. Given the multi-level nature of transformations, INTRANSIT takes into account the global, national and regional conditions and developments. This entails that we also look at transformation in an international and regional perspective. INTRANSIT specifically studies the link between digitalisation and the green transition, which is often referred to as "the twin transition". Digitalisation has a general impact on restructuring in companies and industries, but little is known about how digitalisation affects sustainability and the green transition. INTRANSIT also studies how research and innovation policy affects transformation towards sustainability and how research and innovation policies can be further developed to accelerate change, and cooperate with decision-makers in public and private organizations. INTRANSIT is an interdisciplinary research center by researchers from innovation and entrepreneurship studies, informatics, sustainability sciences, economics and geography. INTRANSIT is hosted by the University of Oslo, specifically by the Centre for Technology, Innovation and Culture, in collaboration with the Department of Informatics. Sintef Digital and the Copernicus Institute for Sustainable Development at Utrecht University are research partners.

The Norwegian business sector is under pressure to transform from at least three global trends with significant, long-term impacts: The projected drop in value creation from petroleum markets, the need to tackle climate change and other grand challenges, and the competitive potentials generated through major leaps in digitalization. Research and innovation policies will impact the way industry responds to these pressures, but their contribution will depend on an improved understanding of the complex interplay between these pressures, ongoing transformation processes in industries and firms, and the composition of the R&I policy mix. With this in mind, the INTRANSIT centre will develop a comprehensive understanding of how industrial transformation towards a more sustainable and smarter Norwegian economy can be fostered, and how R&I policies can be further developed to achieve this goal. INTRANSIT looks upon industrial transformations as multi-level phenomena involving interconnected changes at macro level, at the level of specific sectors in society and at the level of firms and other organizations. INTRANSIT is organized as a multidisciplinary and multi-method research centre with five interrelated research streams (transformation pressures, sectoral pathways, agents and interactions, digitalization and policy) that reflect the multi-level nature of industrial transformations, and addresses these issues in four broad economic sectors: energy/petroleum, maritime/shipping, bio-economy/aquaculture, and manufacturing. These are all vital sectors in the Norwegian economy nationally and regionally, and their successful adaptation to green and digital transformation pressures will have major implications for value creation and employment in coming decades. The INTRANSIT Centre includes four main research partners, a panel of international R&I policy experts and user partners from industy, policy and NGOs.