Innovation as transformation: Integrating the socio-ecological perspectives of resilience and sustainability

Innovation is a context-dependent and institutionally steered process. The problems that require innovations are today often complex environmental problems. Socially seen, environmental problems are solved through the development of resilient and sustainable social and economic systems. We integrate the controversially discussed ideas of resilience and sustainability in the broader framework of coupled social-ecological systems for the analysis of special forms of agriculture in urban areas. Technical innovations need to be matched with political, economic or civil society action of many actors, institutions or social groups. The social processes of development and change show that innovations require change or transformation of social behaviour of certain social groups and actors with different interests and aims. We analyse the social components of innovation processes, based on case studies of peri-urban agriculture and urban gardening, to show behaviour changes and social transformation processes required for the solution of environmental problems.