New more sustainable technologies will be fundamental to new models of growth. But the key question is: where do these technologies emerge and how do they come to be widely adopted? Much literature on technology and development argues that through a process of 'catch up' technological capabilities and innovation systems are built-up, enabling the absorption and innovation of new technologies. This suggests that the innovation of sustainable technologies will also occur primarily in advanced countries, and subsequently adopted in less developed economies.

This research programme takes a different perspective. We believe that the urgent demand for sustainable solutions, the increasing globalisation of knowledge and technology, and the need to respond to complex social and market conditions, means that innovation of sustainable technologies can and does take place in less-developed contexts. We also observe that there is much innovative activity in projects we call 'sustainability experiments' (defined as highly-novel, practice-oriented projects aiming to develop sustainable technologies) in rapidly developing Asian countries. This research aims to provide the first systematic attempt to inventory and understand the contribution of these sustainability experiments. The project will build upon recent system innovation studies and development studies literature. The empirical focus will be on electricity and mobility experiments in India and Thailand. The main outputs of the programme will be a validated framework for inventorying and studying sustainability experiments in rapidly-developing countries; a comparative analysis of experiments and their potential role in broader development processes in India and Thailand; and policy perspectives to strengthen this role.