| dc.description.abstract | Potential local solutions for the provisioning of food, like urban agriculture (UA), become intriguing
when looking at food against the background of a growing urban world population, globalised food
structures, environmental degradation and an increasing scarcity of resources like water, energy and
land. By focusing on UA within a vertical-, controlled- and resource-integrated setting, this research
has chosen to focus on a newly emerging form of UA that is rather large-scale, high-tech and has the
potential to trigger structural change. Its hypothesised potential to challenge existing food structures
has resulted in a theoretical approach based on the multi-level-perspective (MLP) on socio-technical
transitions, specifying a niche-, regime- and landscape-level, while furthermore building on concepts
of governance. Firstly, potential transition drivers have been classified in landscape developments
and niche pressures. Secondly, the capacity of an urban system to govern or ‘scale-up’ such a
transition process has been analysed and expressed in a degree of governance capacity on the
regime-level. By drafting and applying an analytical framework, this research has been able to
analyse transition drivers and the scale-up potential in two specific case studies of vertical-,
controlled- and resource-integrated-UA. By conducting two in-depth analyses through desk research
and semi-structured-interviews in the urban context of Linköping and Singapore, this research has
been able to gain more insights into the world’s first initiatives of vertical-, controlled- and resourceintegrated-
UA. In short, the main conclusions show that both niches rest upon a strong knowledge
foundation and expertise. Despite the underexposed role of stressful landscape developments in
theory, they seem of essence in the articulation of expectation and visions by niche actors. They
furthermore seem to play a major role in the degree of awareness, willingness and power that
determine the governance capacity of a regime. Vertical-, controlled- and resource-integrated-UA
seems to be strongly driven by the private sector, in which financial investments and economic
viability are currently playing crucial roles. Generally, this research has aimed to be of scientific
relevance by addressing knowledge gaps in transition theories when it comes to understanding
drivers of change and the analytical capacity for empirical validation, furthermore touching upon the
underexposed role of agency or governance. It has been able to provide an operationalisation of the
landscape-, regime- and niche-level, including independent variables, hypotheses, indicators and
corresponding research methods. By turning descriptive transition and governance concepts into a
more analytical tool for assessment, this research has furthermore been able to provide context specific
feedback and lessons for vertical-, controlled- and resource-integrated UA. | |
