Transition studies is an interdisciplinary field, largely rooted in science and technology studies, innovation studies and complex adaptive systems thinking (Grin 2016). In general terms, it is concerned with the long-term, deep-seated, structural and cultural change of fundamental societal systems (Geels 2002; Elzen/Geels/Green 2004; Loorbach/Frantzeskaki/Avelino 2017). Transitions are hence defined as profound (or radical), non-linear change processes that involve a modification of both societal practices and their structural, institutional and discursive embedding (Grin 2016). Transition research is often motivated by persistent (or wicked) societal problems, most prominently, sustainability issues such as resource overconsumption, nature degradation or injustice that are difficult to address through technological fixes alone but call for comprehensive approaches (Farla/Markard/Raven et al. 2012). Thanks not least to its societal relevance, sustainability transitions scholarship has thus developed into a prominent subfield of transition studies in the past one and a half decades (Markard/Raven/Truffer 2012).

Sustainability transitions is characterised by a constantly growing variety of conceptual and empirical contributions from different disciplines, which in their entirety enhance understanding of transition processes, their components’ interactions and interdependencies, and their pathways of change from an unsustainable to a more sustainable system state. In most cases, this research is accompanied by a decidedly normative attitude on the part of the researchers, which is why the scientific foundation of sustainability transitions research is often viewed as prescriptive (cf. Turnheim/Sovacool 2020). Not least due to the implicitly normative orientation of the field, some commentators have noticed a lack of engagement with the politics of persistent problems and their resolution (Meadowcroft 2011) – a criticism that has been taken up in recent years, e.g., by introducing power as a concept in transitions (Avelino 2017), reflecting on competing framings of sustainability (Haarstad 2017), or studying resistance and backlash against transition endeavours (Patterson/Paterson 2024).

Another point of criticism has been the lack of engagement with geography, space and place in transitions (Coenen/Benneworth/Truffer 2012; Levin-Keitel/Mölders/Othengrafen et al. 2018), which has recently led to increased attention being paid to local specifics and transitions in context. We interpret this as a sign of an emerging polymorphism in sustainability transitions, opening conceptual doors for the concrete operationalisation of calls for sustainable system change on the local level – a development that we deem necessary for the realisation of sustainable transformations. We want to highlight the following strands of discourse that pave the way to such a shift by contributing to a more context-sensitive perspective.²

Transition management emerged as one of the first prominent transition governance approaches. Rooted in Dutch environmental policy, it began in 2001 as an experiment to co-design long-term societal change towards sustainability and developed into a prominent governance model for the concerted efforts of science, policy, business and civil society to transform unsustainable systems (Loorbach 2007). Transition management proceeds through the conceptual phases of a transition process – from pre-development and take-off to acceleration and stabilisation – defining different government roles and tasks for each phase (Kemp/Rotmans 2005). Strategic niche management constitutes an important measure in the pre-development phase of transitions (Kemp/Rotmans 2005). It builds on the multi-level perspective and its interpretation of innovative niches as part and parcel of sustainability transitions (Geels 2002). Strategic niche management aims at nurturing innovative potential for the development of sustainable solutions by encouraging, establishing and funding protected spaces and has become a widely employed approach in transition governance (Schot/Geels 2008). This call for promoting niches and experiments has resonated with many in academia and practice, opening the door for labs and experiments as two further transition governance approaches that have received significant attention recently. Both real-world laboratories and experiments start from the assumption that resolving wicked problems demands a trial-and-error attitude of learning-by-doing, and both acknowledge the variability of sectors, institutions and geographies as factors that should go into the design of such interventions (Renn 2018). In experimentation literature, the specifics of place are increasingly prominent, as research explains how such interventions are often rooted in specific local problematisations of sustainability and transformation, and how experimentation is considered a vehicle for putting concrete sustainable innovations “on the ground” in the specific structural and cultural settings of place (Loorbach/Wittmayer/Avelino et al. 2020, Suitner/Haider/Krisch 2024). With these and other accounts, the governance of transitions discourse has added to the notion of local variability in transitions.

Understanding multi-system transitions with their interdependencies across sectors is vital, given that sustainability challenges often transcend individual systems. However, most studies focus predominantly on national-level transitions (e.g. Andersen/Geels/Steen et al. 2023; Ohlendorf/Löhr/Markard 2023), while overlooking local dynamics. A few exceptions exist, such as Rosenbloom (2020), who highlights the importance of subnational transitions. However, the spatial dimension and ensuing diversity is not directly addressed in these conceptualisations, although the multi-system approach helps to coordinate sectoral transitions and their (spatial) demands with other systems, while embedding these interrelated and interwoven systems in locally specific contexts. Multi-system transitions therefore present a step forward in explaining place-specific processes (Coenen/Benneworth/Truffer 2012; Chlebna/Martin/Mattes 2023) and show that interactions between socio-technical systems often depend on local contexts.

When we speak of spatial planning, we refer to the institutional activity responsible for governing the development of settlement areas, infrastructures and open spaces to best cater for societal development (Moroni 2020).⁴ We also refer to it as the scientific discipline that theorises and reflects on this institutional activity to educate future planning experts and improve planning praxis. We hence argue that planning research and planning praxis are two “communicating vessels”. More than in other scientific disciplines, spatial planning – with its focus on real-world problems and their governance to achieve societal stability and navigate change – constantly meanders between analysis and future intervention (Levin-Keitel/Behrend 2023). The boundaries between research and praxis are hence per se blurred – as is now also becoming the case in neighbouring fields that are calling for (or experiencing) a transformative turn (Wittmayer/Hölscher 2017). This implies that the planning discipline can serve as an adequate entry point to local policy and practice – something sustainability transitions scholarship is craving for to accelerate transitions and create impact – hence putting transition knowledge “on the ground” (Levin-Keitel/Mölders/Othengrafen et al. 2018).

The links between planning and sustainability transitions seem obvious. Sustainability problems are an undisputed and long-known challenge of societal development (Rogers/Jalal/Boyd 2007). They have a reciprocal cause-and-effect relationship with spatial development, as many sustainability problems materialise in spatial structures or are reinforced by existing structures (Naess 2001). Their resolution therefore goes hand in hand with profound spatial transformations. It comes as no surprise that sustainable spatial development has thus for decades been a key theme in local and regional development, urban and regional governance, and urban development policy, as well as a perennial topic in urban and regional research (Healey/Shaw 1993; McDonald 1996; Naess 2001). It is only recently though, that the urgency of the polycrisis and the boom of transformation as a research area, policy discourse and common buzzword have caused a shift in terminology to sustainable (spatial) transformations and transformative planning.

Nourished by transition knowledge, a number of studies have recently addressed sustainability transitions from a planning perspective – also in this journal. Links to sustainability transitions research are typically made by applying established transition studies concepts such as transition management to planning issues (Schröder/Klinger 2024), or by transferring a key question from the sustainability transitions discourse − such as how to accelerate transitions − to spatial planning considerations (von Seht 2024). The focus is often on individual case studies of concrete sustainability problems in specific policy areas such as energy (cf. for instance Eichenauer 2023), although some studies have addressed the interface of sustainability transitions and planning on a more general, conceptual level (cf. Wolfram 2018; Hartl/Harms/Egermann 2024). Likewise, novel transformational concepts or policies such as degrowth (Brokow-Loga/Krüger 2023) or zero land-take (Lacoere/Leinfelder 2023) are often reflected upon in light of specific local conditions or planning policies. With these and other studies, planning research has not just visibly contributed relevant additional insights to the buzzing transformation discourse. Driven by its disciplinary tradition and theoretical grounding, it has also added three significant perspectives on the spatiality, local implementation and politics of transitions.

First, while the geography of transitions, with its relational understanding of space and its emphasis on multi-scalar institutional contexts, has established a general awareness of the geographical variability of transitions, studies of sustainability transitions inspired by spatial planning have further broadened the range of relevant perspectives on the spatiality of transitions. For instance, authors in planning increasingly address the role of place in transitions (Deutz/Jonas/Newsholme et al. 2024; Loeber/Kok 2024; Suitner/Krisch 2024), herewith giving more emphasis to the cultural, cognitive and political aspects of spatiality than the innovation- and institution-oriented geographies of transitions. Others have also discussed concrete issues of land availability and land conflict in transitions (cf. for instance Lacoere/Leinfelder 2023), highlighting how one of the most fundamental concerns of planning research and praxis pertains to the success of just and sustainable transitions.

Second, the literature discussing the governance of transitions has made significant efforts to increase understanding of and design effective procedures for guiding socio-technical systems on their paths to sustainability in specific policy areas, using targeted methods of intervention. However, there has been little consideration of the question of how systemic, innovation-driven conceptions of sustainable change could best be put forward in specific territorial contexts with their specific governance procedures, (hard and soft) instruments, and in line with an established local political and planning culture. Planning research has made important contributions to fill this gap by pointing out the key role of the local state and the specific formal instruments and procedures of spatial planning as variables in local transition efforts (Bush 2020; Eichhorn/Adam/Schürholt et al. 2024; von Seht 2024). Scholars have particularly focused on land-use plans as an instrument for operationalising sustainability transitions (Persson 2013; Calvert et al. 2022), showing how planning instruments and knowledge about their functionality matter for the implementation of transitions.

And third, while the focus of transition studies is by nature on the procedural dimension, early studies of socio-technical system transitions were predominantly oriented towards historical perspectives on transition patterns and drivers of change (cf. for instance Geels 2002; Solomon/Krishna 2011). Due to its normative stance, sustainability transitions has a more pronounced future-orientation (Turnheim/Sovacool 2020). The question as to which knowledge, solutions or governance approaches are most effective in achieving socio-technical system change is at the heart of sustainability transitions (Kemp/Rip/Schot 2001; Markard/Geels/Raven 2020). Consideration of the influence on transitions of socio-technical imaginaries and dominant ideas about a certain kind of future has added a more political note to the debate (cf. Jasanoff/Kim 2009; Feola/Goodman/Suzunaga et al. 2023). Reflecting on current trends and expected change, scenario thinking, designing visions and initiating concrete developments to facilitate deliberate change towards an intended future is part and parcel of the everyday doings of the institutional activity of spatial planning (Healey/Shaw 1993; Moroni 2020). The interface between planning, sustainability and resilience is therefore evident and has been addressed by planning and transition scholars alike (cf. for instance Wilson/Piper 2010; Elmqvist/Andersson/Frantzeskaki et al. 2019), pointing to the unique expertise of planners when it comes to sustainable future-making.

In the following section, we further elaborate on these aspects as three planning literacies that we consider important for operationalising transitions. It is important to note that these literacies build on a critical realist notion of space that acknowledges both the relevance of an objective material, biophysical reality for sustainable transformations, and the existence and influence of diverse individual and collective perceptions of space and deliberative (and potentially competing) constructions of this material reality. We can then juxtapose seemingly disparate philosophical understandings of space as specific qualities of how planning interprets and interacts with society, space and their respective transformations. Such diversity in the readings (and theories) of space is also characteristic of the (urban) sustainability transitions discourse, where realist and social-constructivist perspectives have made equally valuable contributions to explaining patterns and variability in transitions (Egermann/Ehnert/Wolfram et al. 2024). To us, this diversity in readings of space constitutes one of the key anchoring points of the two fields, as the following elaborations show.

There has been much debate about sustainability transitions lacking a context-sensitive perspective that highlights regional differences in transition patterns (Coenen/Benneworth/Truffer 2012; Levin-Keitel/Mölders/Othengrafen et al. 2018). We describe above how the discourses of geographies of transitions and urban sustainability transitions have successfully aimed to resolve this issue. Ensuing work has provided lots of relevant insights into the specific challenges of transitions in different institutional contexts, innovation systems and (national) economies, as well as an important perspective on transitions in different types of places, most prominently, cities. They have thus certainly contributed to a better contextualised understanding of sustainable system change.

Hence, we argue that a differentiated spatial lens – while in dire need of the multi-scalar and institutional perspective that the geographies of transitions discourse calls for – needs at the same time to go beyond this perspective and address material spatial realities such as biophysical conditions, topography, distance and the availability of land as further determinants (cf. for instance Wamsler/Brink/Rivera 2013). From a spatial planning perspective, these factors become decisive once we shift our focus away from innovation perspectives on, say, renewable energy technologies such as wind turbines to their concrete materialisation in the form of a wind park in search of the “best” (or rather, most cost-efficient or socially accepted) location.

This perspective is important. The materialisation of sustainability objectives “on the ground” ultimately boils down to questions of location (e.g., for wind turbines) and distance (e.g., for active transport infrastructure). It hence requires knowledge of materialities like building stock and land availability, and their suitability for different kinds of development as the “real” context of sustainable transformations. This kind of knowledge can be provided by spatial planning.

In addition, a perspective on biophysical materialities also puts natural resources centre stage – not just as potential resources for more sustainable modes of production (e.g., in a regional bioeconomy). It highlights the necessity of supplementing the rather ecomodernist, technology-driven sustainability transitions discourse with an ecosocial perspective that particularly engages with the maximum ecological limits of transformation. Thinking beyond the commodification of renewable natural resources as facilitators of sustainable system change immediately entails questions of nature conservation and protection – an aspect that is inseparably linked with land-use planning and hence deserves to be addressed in the local operationalisation of sustainable transformations. We expand on this in Section 3.2.

Research addressing the ensuing multi-layered place dependency of transitions is still rare though. Loeber and Kok (2024), for instance, point out how intermediaries in sustainability transitions are deeply linked with local identity, place-based networks and place-based learning. Von Wirth and Levin-Keitel (2020) explain how sustainability experiments interact with their respective socio-spatial contexts. And Suitner and Krisch (2024) demonstrate how key actors’ knowledge and reflexivity of local material, institutional and socio-cultural spatial specifics influence the success of local sustainability initiatives.

If we agree that place-sensitivity is a factor in transitions, spatial planning – with its nuanced understanding of how materiality and sense of place, territoriality and multi-scalar institutional contexts combine into a full-fledged picture of the spatiality of a specific locale – can be of great value for putting sustainability transitions on the ground. A concrete example (among many) is multi-criteria locational analysis, which is a prerequisite when it comes to implementing concrete sustainable infrastructure projects in space. A further example is provided by the analysis of identity and image, frames and imaginaries, the mapping of socio-cultural space and the design of an ensuing place-based development perspective or vision.

Sustainability transitions has long lacked debate on the role of the public sector and the local state as actors in and resources for acceleration (cf. Johnstone/Newell 2018 for one of the few exceptions). We argue that planning as an institutional activity (Moroni 2020) falls exactly into this representation of the public sector and the local state and should hence be discussed in the context of transitions and the state with more emphasis. Previous studies have already addressed the role of planning as a specific governance mechanism for strategically preparing and institutionally embedding transitions (cf. Hrelja/Hjerpe/Storbjörk 2015; Nieminen/Salomaa/Juhola 2021). However, these studies have not gone into more detail concerning the actual instruments and ensuing questions of decision-making and the challenges of putting transitions on the ground.

We contend that the local level presents not merely a challenge in terms of implementation, but also a set of unresolved questions pertaining to the role of the local state, the nature of democratic decision-making in a multi-level governance system, and the relative efficacy of top-down and bottom-up approaches to the diffusion of innovation. There is a clear opportunity to transfer and translate questions of rules and regulations, operationalisation and control approaches, as well as state guidelines from planning research into transition studies. As Mölders and Levin-Keitel (2022) showcased, the contributions of spatial planning go far beyond the deepening of (already well-studied) system knowledge. They further involve engagement with (contested) target knowledge, transformative knowledge and the frequently asked question of implementation and society-driven transformations. These different forms of knowledge apply to legal norms and regulations, as well as formal and informal planning instruments, which can be used as communication and cooperation tools. The mobility transition is an illustrative example that demonstrates how this can be achieved.

From our perspective, an even more fundamental consideration is the inherent logic of planning to protect and preserve certain land uses, such as nature and countryside. While transition studies tend to focus on change, particularly in terms of phasing in and out, as well as the implementation of innovation, there is a paucity of research exploring the role of land use that not only stays unchanged but must also be actively protected. Nature conservation has thus been living in the shadows in a field that has traditionally been keener on technology as a means of system optimisation and growth, rather than on sufficiency and restraints (Isenhour 2016; Grunwald 2018). This is an area that warrants greater attention in the context of transition processes. Spatial planning with its competencies can play a significant role in this regard, as it inherently involves weighing up land-use permissions and prohibitions for the greater good. With such an approach, spatial planning could also contribute to freeing sustainability transitions from the accusation of ecomodernism and integrating sustainable infrastructure expansion with calls for respecting planetary boundaries.

With its instrumental legacy, it seems that there are a number of main areas in which planning research could contribute to the transition discussion: integrating sectoral norms and laws at the local level, utilising and modifying legally binding plans and programmes, and employing the well-established decision-making rules of informal instruments are illustrative examples of how planning knowledge can be used to enrich the debate. The instruments that can be employed to effect transformations seldom even require innovation. Such instruments have existed for a considerable period of time, during which planning has accrued a substantial corpus of experience and knowledge about how to employ them to direct spatial change. However, in order to gain an accurate understanding of their capabilities and limitations and to deploy them in a sustainable manner, it is essential to include planning knowledge, the underlying planning and legal system, and the local planning culture with this intricate set of tools.

The temporal dimension is an intrinsic aspect of transition studies, as evidenced by the multi-level perspective or the x‑curve model. These models illustrate the optimal temporal trajectory of innovations or exnovations that are expected to contribute to a sustainable way of life. Governance approaches such as transition management further elucidate the conditions under which such processes can succeed, emphasising joint knowledge production and a sequence of different participation formats (Loorbach 2007). However, these accounts lack a clear perspective on democratic legitimisation in the process of carving out pathways towards a certain future. We contend that spatial planning, with its expertise in aligning structures, actors and resources in democratic legitimisation processes about future developments, can substantially contribute to this.

The theoretical considerations from planning theories regarding decisions about the future can represent an important contribution to future-making debates in sustainability transitions. Examples range from rationalist approaches that generate images of the future and introduce them as inspiration for transformation processes (Amer/Daim/Jetter 2013), to the experiences and pitfalls of collaborative approaches and their criticism by antagonistic planning theories (Healey 2003; Gualini 2015), or approaches that understand planning as a political process and consider the implications this has for less consensual decisions (Low 1991). Furthermore, contemporary theories are also sought, including ones that espouse circular planning, transformative planning and pragmatic planning.

The potential value of implementing planning theories and especially procedural theories as part of a comprehensive future literacy is indispensable. We introduce three examples to illustrate some relevant approaches: first, imaginations and climate futures as rationalist inputs to debates about the future; second, participation and co-creation as well-established but ambivalent approaches to collaborative future-making; and third, labs and policy recommendations as a shift from “is” to “ought” in urban transformation.

The questions of how multiple simultaneous transitions influence territorial development is an emerging area of research where spatial planning has the potential to make significant contributions to knowledge, while also undergoing a process of evolution and development – particularly in terms of strengthening its own theoretical foundations. In socio-technical contexts, policies frequently seek to regulate the sustainability of complex systems, encourage the development and dissemination of sustainable innovations or shift individual behaviour towards more sustainable practices. However, the planning discipline is inherently concerned with future knowledge, stressing another perspective characterised by sensitivity to diverse demands, logics and the acknowledgement of multiple realities, each with its own potential futures. This multiplicity could provide sustainability transitions with a valuable pathway from understanding “what is” to envisioning “what ought to be”, thereby offering substantial opportunities for advancing the theoretical foundations of transition studies.