This policy brief is part of the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose’s (UCL IIPP) publication series.
Explore more working papers and policy reports here.
How Can City Administrations Innovate to Advance Green Transitions While Strengthening Democracy? A typology of innovations for democratic green transitions | UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose (IIPP) Policy Brief No. 34
Authors:
- Anna Kurth | Research Fellow, UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose (IIPP)
- Rainer Kattel | Deputy Director and Professor of Innovation and Public Governance, UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose (IIPP)
- Karoline S. Rogge | Professor of Sustainability Innovation and Policy, Science Policy Research Unit - SPRU, University of Sussex & Deputy Head of Department “Policy and Society”, Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research ISI
- Maria Stadler | Researcher, Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research ISI
Executive Summary
City governments’ ability to drive green transitions depends not only on technological solutions and administrative capacity, but also on democratic legitimacy. With many European countries facing populist backlash, this latter aspect has moved increasingly into the focus of political and policy debates about the climate emergency in recent years. As a result, city policymakers face a dual challenge: advancing urgent green transitions while maintaining public trust and legitimacy. The GreenDEMO project responds to this challenge by empowering city governments to strengthen their capabilities to innovate at the intersection of the green transition and democratic governance.
This policy brief presents a typology of such innovative activities and thereby highlights and reveals both strengths in current practice and areas requiring further attention. Drawing on GreenDEMO’s mapping of over 400 public sector innovations for democratic green transitions across cities in ten European countries, this policy brief presents our two main takeaways and resulting implications.
- Cities are already experimenting with a diverse range of innovations for democratic green transitions. These innovations span across different democratic practices (accountability, participation, and citizen influence) and address key transition tasks (supporting green solutions, orchestrating transition processes, and destabilising unsustainable systems). This implies a broad set of innovation options for cities wishing to combine green transition objectives with strengthening democratic legitimacy.
- This diversity is unevenly distributed which is problematic as balance across innovation types matters for successful green transitions. Most identified city innovations focus on participation, while far fewer strengthen accountability or give citizens meaningful influence over decisions. Similarly, innovation efforts concentrate on orchestrating transition processes and supporting green solutions, with limited attention to destabilising unsustainable systems. Cities thus tend to innovate most in areas that are politically and administratively less contentious. Yet, without a balanced mix of innovation types, there is a risk that the green transitions will advance too slowly and not comprehensively enough.
Taken together, these key findings imply that city governments should rebalance their innovation portfolio to embrace the full range of innovations at their disposal to advance the democratic green transition. Strengthening democratic green transitions requires deliberately broadening innovation portfolios beyond participation and orchestration towards ones that enhance accountability and citizen influence as well as support the destabilisation of unsustainable systems and new green solutions.
In rebalancing innovation portfolios, policy makers should keep in mind that administrative and governance context shapes how cities innovate. Public administration traditions influence which forms of democratic innovations are perceived as legitimate and feasible, leading to variation across countries and governance settings. This means that innovations cannot be applied in a one-size-fits-all manner: when piloting new approaches, cities need to adapt innovations to their specific administrative and political context.
Doing so will require targeted investment in capabilities inside city administrations, including organisational, and political capacities to justify, implement, and institutionalise more demanding forms of democratic innovation. National governments and funders can play a crucial role by adapting institutional rules, funding frameworks, and training programmes to support mayors and city civil servants in developing these capabilities.
Reference:
Kurth, A., Kattel, R., Rogge, K. S., and Stadler, M. (2026). How can city administrations innovate to advance green transitions while strengthening democracy? A typology of innovations for democratic green transitions. UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose, IIPP Policy Brief Series (IIPP Policy Brief 34, 2026). ISSN 2635-0122.
This policy brief is part of the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose’s (UCL IIPP) publication series.
Explore more working papers and policy reports here.