Fraunhofer-Institut für System- und Innovationsforschung ISI

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  • Publication
    The diffusion of industrial robots
    ( 2022)
    Dachs, Bernhard
    ;
    Fu, Xiaolan
    ;
    Jäger, Angela
    Over the last 20 years, industrial robots have become more flexible, adaptive, and powerful. The worldwide diffusion of industrial robots increased significantly, especially after the global financial crisis of 2008/09. Despite this growth, industrial robots are unevenly distributed across countries, sectors, and firms and still far from being a general-purpose technology. Today, firms in Asian countries install more industrial robots than America, Europe, and Africa combined. China is the largest user of industrial robots. The manufacturing sector is by far the major application domain for robots, in particular the automotive and the electrical/electronics industries. Outside manufacturing, only few robots are installed. Robots are still an exception in small firms and for the production in smaller batches or single units. Evidence for an uneven diffusion of robots can also be found in comparisons of the intensity of robot use across countries which is very much driven by industrial structure.
  • Publication
    Technische und menschliche Unterstützung von Menschen mit Behinderungen - Anforderungen an eine gelingende Inklusion
    ( 2022)
    Bratan, Tanja orcid-logo
    ;
    Nierling, Linda
    ;
    Maia, Maria
    Die Schaffung einer inklusiven, reflexiven und innovativen Gesellschaft wird in Deutschland aktuell u.a. mit dem Nationalen Aktionsplan zur UN-Behindertenrechtskonvention 2.0 umgesetzt. Dennoch besteht bei der Inklusion von Menschen mit Behinderungen auf praktischer Ebene Verbesserungsbedarf, so existieren bspw. Herausforderungen in Bezug auf die gesellschaftliche Akzeptanz oder den Zugang zu bedarfsgerechten Assistiven Technologien (AT). Diese haben bei der Inklusion eine wichtige Funktion, da sie ihre Benutzer:innen in der alltäglichen Lebensführung oder der Teilhabe am Arbeitsmarkt unterstützen können. Eine wesentliche Rolle für dieses Unterstützungspotenzial - sowohl für Low- als auch für Hightech-Lösungen - spielen die Zugänglichkeit und die Kosten, aber auch die Akzeptanz von AT, die wesentlich verbessert werden kann, wenn ein nutzerorientierter Design- und Entwicklungsprozess verfolgt wird. Eine verantwortungsvolle Begleitung des Innovationsprozesses ist vor allem auch dann wichtig, wenn es um neue Entwicklungen im Feld der AT, z.B. künstliche Intelligenz, geht. Für eine gelingende Inklusion spielt neben der nutzerorientierten Technikgestaltung auch die staatliche Regulierung eine wichtige Rolle, da so die Einbettung und Nutzung von AT auf der persönlichen Ebene gefördert werden kann. Anhand von zwei Szenarien werden im Kapitel unterschiedliche Zukunftspfade für die Unterstützung der Inklusion durch AT aufgezeigt. Wesentliche Faktoren für die zukünftige Entwicklung sind das gesellschaftliche Klima und die soziale Einbettung technischer Lösungen. Drei Handlungsfelder für eine gelingende Inklusion können abgeleitet werden: 1) Die Bereitstellung sowohl menschlicher und technischer Unterstützungsmöglichkeiten, abgestimmt auf die individuellen Bedürfnisse und Fähigkeiten, 2) die strategische Priorisierung der breiten Verfügbarkeit von AT, parallel dazu die Entwicklung von Hightech-Lösungen, die eines Tages breit verfügbar sein könnten, und 3) die Förderung eines inklusionsfreundlichen gesellschaftlichen Klimas.
  • Publication
    Coal, power and coal-powered politics in Indonesia
    ( 2022)
    Ordonez, Jose Antonio
    ;
    Jakob, Michael
    ;
    Steckel, Jan C.
    ;
    Fünfgeld, Anna
    Indonesia is among the countries with the largest planned coal power capacity additions worldwide, thereby posing a substantial challenge for global climate change mitigation goals. To understand the underlying political drivers, we carry out expert interviews and examine how individual actors and their objectives, as well as the country context, influence energy policy formulation. We find that under President Joko Widodo, energy policy formulation has been driven by the development of public infrastructure, while securing popularity for the presidential election in 2019. State-owned enterprises represent a source of political patronage and are employed to achieve those goals. Diminishing export markets have incentivized the politically well-connected and highly concentrated Indonesian coal industry to lobby for the construction of coal-fired power plants in order to raise domestic demand. There is also a strong incentive to sustain coal mining as a key economic activity, as associated royalties significantly contribute to local and national public budgets. Local pollution and climate change mitigation are of low priority. Despite the government's documented awareness of the energy sector as the biggest contributor to future emissions, climate protection is narrowly framed as a forestry and land-use issue.
  • Publication
    The micro-level approach to the circular economy
    ( 2021)
    Rio, Pablo del
    ;
    Kiefer, Christoph P. orcid-logo
    ;
    Carrillo-Hermosilla, Javier
    ;
    Könnölä, Totti
    The CE is a multidimensional and multi-level concept. This multidimensionality is addressed by most authors in the CE literature.
  • Publication
    Small electric vehicles in commercial transportation: Empirical study on acceptance, adoption criteria and economic and ecological impact on a company level
    ( 2021)
    Hettesheimer, Tim
    ;
    Moll, Cornelius
    ;
    Jeßberger, Kerstin
    ;
    Franz, Saskia
    Small electric vehicles (SEVs) in commercial transportation have the potential to reduce traffic and its impacts, especially in urban areas. Companies, however, are still reluctant to implement SEVs. Therefore, the aim of this contribution is to shed light on the acceptance of motives for and obstacles to the use of SEVs in commercial transportation. Since the use of SEVs is often discussed in the context of innovative city logistics concepts, such as micro-hubs, our aim is also, to explore the acceptance, economic, and ecological potentials of SEVs in combination with micro-hubs. We use a multi-method approach and combine an online survey with in-depth interviews as well as a total cost of ownership (TCO) and CO2 calculation. Analyzing 350 responses to an online survey revealed that around half the companies surveyed have no knowledge of SEVs. This implies high unexploited potential, since 25% of these companies can imagine using them. In-depth interviews with logistics service providers (LSPs) or logistics departments from different sectors revealed that six of the 13 interviewed LSPs would be willing to implement this concept.
  • Publication
    Scenario storyline in context of decarbonization pathways for a future European energy system
    ( 2021)
    Herbst, Andrea
    ;
    Schreiber, Steffi
    ;
    Poganietz, Witold-Roger
    ;
    Martino, Angelo
    ;
    Möst, Dominik
    This chapter presents a qualitative description of the scenario storylines for the REFLEX project. The scenario descriptions provide the overall qualitative framework for the modeling activities by setting-up two holistic socio-technical scenarios based on different storylines: the moderate renewable scenario (Mod-RES) as reference scenario and the (de-)centralized high renewable scenarios (High-RES) as ambitious policy scenarios. The chapter highlights the definition of main techno-economic framework parameters, macro-economic and societal drivers as well as of the considered political environment.
  • Publication
    Drivers and barriers to circular practices at the micro-level: Case studies
    ( 2021)
    Rio, Pablo del
    ;
    Kiefer, Christoph P. orcid-logo
    ;
    Carrillo-Hermosilla, Javier
    ;
    Könnölä, Totti
    In order to illustrate the drivers and barriers to the adoption of CE innovations at the micro-(firm) level, in this chapter, we present case studies of firms in different sectors.
  • Publication
    User-driven innovation with frugal characteristics. A Multi-Case Analysis of China's Innovation-Driven
    ( 2021)
    Kroll, Henning orcid-logo
    ;
    Liefner, Ingo
    This paper emphasises the continued and renewed relevance of user-driven, frugal innovation for economic development in China, thus challenging the increasingly prevalent, technology-centred approach to explaining local economic growth in that country. Taking up inspirations from other emerging economies' discourses, it demonstrates that business models aimed at innovation for mid- to low-income markets continue to play a role for China. Acknowledging that ""frugal innovation"" as such is not a common term in China to date, it underlines that three fundamental elements of frugal activities are indeed very vividly present in China and deserve further attention. First, the awareness for and ability to designing focused, user-oriented solutions in unorthodox ways, second, the ability to leverage and network distributed capacity outside of the nation's geographic centres of innovation and, third, ability to explore new models of collaborative innovation that reach beyond corporate boundaries. Furthermore, it highlights that, nowadays, digital technologies enable novel approaches to matching different types of innovation supply and demand at various levels throughout the country.
  • Publication
    Introduction
    ( 2021)
    Rio, Pablo del
    ;
    Kiefer, Christoph P. orcid-logo
    ;
    Carrillo-Hermosilla, Javier
    ;
    Könnölä, Totti
    More than a decade ago, three of us joined forces to write a book on the role of innovation in environmental protection. The title of that book ""Eco-Innovation: When Sustainability and Competitiveness Shake Hands"" captured our conviction to explore win-win solutions for a wider impact. Continuing our journey with this new book, we realize the world has changed quite a bit in a decade. Today, we find that the environment and innovation are both pertinent centrepieces of the highest policy and business agendas. Among all efforts to link competitiveness and sustainability, the concept of circular economy (CE) is probably the one with the highest momentum.