Researcher: Sander Mooren
Project Duration: September 2022 – August 2026
Project Partner: Next Generation Infrastructures, Rijkswaterstaat, ProRail, Port of Rotterdam, Alliander, Vittens, Province Noord-Holland
Project Description:
Infrastructure agencies are increasingly aware of the challenges that socio-technical transitions pose to their infrastructure systems and they have started to interact more strategically with various stakeholders in infrastructure planning processes. However, these more open forms of strategic planning, labelled as ‘open strategizing’, remain exceptions rather than the rule. The legacy of institutionalized sector-focused planning processes and the need of bringing together multiple internal and external interests create organizational and institutional tensions and dilemmas that constrain cross-sectoral strategy forming. In practice, infrastructure agencies experience difficulties synchronizing their infrastructure plans to facilitate transitions. The research project “Open Strategizing for Infrastructures in Transition” (PRONTO) addresses these difficulties by answering the following research question:
What practices of open strategizing are enacted in planning processes for infrastructure in transitions to achieve coordinated cross-sectoral infrastructure strategies, and what governance and modelling approaches support these practices?
By adopting a multi-disciplinary approach and integrating governance and modelling dimension of planning processes, PRONTO provides unique insights in the pluralistic planning realities of infrastructure agencies and generates a rich and nuanced understanding on how processes of long-term infrastructure strategizing can be opened up to achieve a more cross-sectoral planning coordination. The research outcomes of PRONTO feed into the development of specific training modules and a serious game which both will facilitate learning for open strategizing of infrastructure professionals and the next generation of infrastructure planners.