The TIPPING+ Project Journey

This chapter introduces and provides the research background of the several contributions of this book. It does so first by briefly reviewing the previous conceptual developments that over the course of two decades eventually led to the EU-funded project TIPPING+. The goal of the project was to improve our understanding of the enabling conditions and complex processes for fast structural sustainable transformations in coal and carbon intensive regions (CCIRs) using the notion of positive tipping points as a boundary concept able to bring together the insights of various social science and interdisciplinary perspectives. The main challenge facing these regions is understood not only as sectoral energy transitioning challenge; but the extent to which multiple socio-economic, political and cultural dimensions for full-systems transformations are taken into account. Second, it presents some of the conceptual and methodological proposals generated by the project and argues for ontological and epistemological diversity and to understand equity and justice as a key drivers and outcomes of positive tipping points. As a research journey, however, the TIPPING+ project did not search for a destination. Instead, it looked for a point of departure, for an opportunity space in which different disciplines, researchers and interests could jointly develop their own ideas and start their own new research ventures.