Dear Friends and Colleagues

 Without having completed any analysis as yet, we just wanted to let you know that that the Department of Energy's FY2010 budget request released yesterday features as its lead new program a significant new energy innovation program that appears heavily informed by the Brookings proposal for the creation of energy discovery-innovation institutes (e-DIIs).

DOE's embodiment of the e-DIIs concept is the creation of eight Energy Innovation Hubs supported with $280 million (see the 6th slide of the attached Sec. Chu presentation; page 1 of the DOE FY2010 budget request; and DOE CFO Steve Isakowitz's presentation, which introduces the Hubs on slide 8).  These hubs will "support cross-disciplinary research and development focused on the barriers to transforming energy technologies into commercially deployable materials, devices and systems. They advance highly promising areas of energy science and technology from their early stages of research to the point that the risk level will be low enough for industry to deploy into the marketplace. This initial set of research Hubs will explore the following topics: Solar Electricity; Fuels from Sunlight; Batteries and Energy Storage; Carbon Capture and Storage; Grid Materials, Devices, and Systems; Energy Efficient Building Systems Design; Extreme Materials; and Modeling and Simulation." 

 Eight hubs will be created from within various existing DOE offices:

 -Office of Science:  The DOE's Office of Science budget request includes $70 million for two Hubs:

            -A hub focused on "the creation of fuels directly from sunlight without the use of plants or microbes

            -A hub focused on "advanced methods of electrical energy storage"

(see page 6 of the DOE's budget request)

 -Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy: The DOE's EERE budget request includes $70 million for two Hubs:

-A hub focused on "on integrating smart materials, designs, and systems to tune building usage to better conserve energy,"

-A hub focused on "designing and discovering new concepts and materials needed for solar to electricity conversion"

(see page 7 of the DOE's budget request)

-Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability: Some of the $174 million requested for research and development within the EDER office will be used to establish one of the eight Hubs:

-A hub "to develop 'smart' materials that will allow the grid to adapt and respond to changing conditions" 

(see page 8 of the DOE's budget request)

-Office of Nuclear Energy: The DOE's Nuclear Energy budget request includes $70 million for two Hubs:

-A "Modeling and Simulation hub" that will "focus on providing validated advanced modeling and simulation tools necessary to enable fundamental change in how the U.S. designs nuclear power and fuel cycle technologies"

-An "Extreme Materials Research hub" that will "further the fundamental knowledge of the behavior of materials under extreme conditions, including high radiation fields, high temperatures, and corrosive environments over long periods of time, relevant to nuclear energy applications"

(see page 10 of the DOE's budget request)

 -Office of Fossil Energy: Part of the $431 million requested for Carbon Capture and Sequestration R&D within the Office of Fossil Energy will be used to create one of the eight Hubs:

-A Hub that will "focus on enabling fundamental advances and discovery of novel and revolutionary capture/separation approaches to dramatically reduce the energy penalty and costs associated with CO2 capture"

(see page 11 of the DOE's budget request)

 Obviously there are many questions we need to ask and get answered about these hubs--and I encourage you to inquire and share anything you learn as we will be drilling down to analyze the proposal in the coming days.    But for now we are gratified to see that the innovation institute or hub idea has found a home, and believe we all--through hard, hard work and teamwork--should take some satisfaction at having gotten something across at a tumultuous moment.

With all the best,

Mark Muro | Fellow and Policy Director

Sarah Rahman | Policy Analyst

 

Metropolitan Policy Program | The Brookings Institution

1775 Massachusetts Avenue, NW | Washington, DC  20036

Visit us at www.brookings.edu/metro 

 

http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/news/1218250522129010.xml&coll=7

As I am looking at various ethical issues and unintended consequences, I'll be posting articles here.

http://biofuelsandclimate.wordpress.com/2009/04/16/unintended-consequences-of-californias-lcfs/

Here are a few best practices that make a difference when considering how best to execute stakeholder engagement.

Enroll the right stakeholders to improve outcomes

Most commonly, a stakeholder is defined as "any group or individual who can affect or is affected by the achievement of [an] organization's objectives" Freeman (1984: 46). We would add that a stakeholder may also include someone who acts with an organization, implying a joint effort. Research indicates that more successful outcomes emerge from initiatives where stakeholders have participated by providing inputs for identifying and designing solutions. Initiatives make better decisions, which are more informed, have greater longevity and are more likely to meet the requirements of the opportunity or problem they seek to address.

Governance is a process, not a destination

When we speak of governance for multi-stakeholder collaborations, we are referring to the notion that governance provides "mechanisms for steering social systems toward their goals" (Rosenau, J. N., 2006, p. 118). In other words, governance for multi-stakeholder collaborations is a flexible model for group decision-making. It is a means to navigate the ambiguous boundaries at the intersection of our biggest problems - whether within an enterprise, between enterprises or at the place where the economy, the environment and civil society meet. This is not the governance of sovereign nations, but of daily life.

Lead from the middle

When practiced well, stakeholder strategy assigns accountability for outcomes. Not all initiatives or enterprises have a charismatic leader; mostly we lead from the middle and from amongst the many. That's hard to do unless we find a way to do it together. This is what makes stakeholder or governance bodies so important. Rarely does a single authority exist upon which we can confer total responsibility. Pushing accountability and authority outward and towards those who are working at the intersection of where the work gets done empowers companies, workers and communities. It's also more efficient. Authority implies the power to influence and lead cooperation, rather than the power to control the outputs of a group.

Having a strategy helps

The notion of stakeholders may be a fluid concept, but issues of power, legitimacy, inequality and influence affect how we sort through the most complex problems of our time. And, it's all about relationships. So, while none of us are islands, if governments, corporations or communities want to change conditions, they have to bring folks along. Having a strategy does not mean that consensus is the rule or the norm, but it does suggest that understanding material concerns, such as who is impacted and who has impact, can help guide efforts. Thoughtful and intentional strategic engagement leads to better outcomes, with less risk and greater gain.

This report, courtesy of Brookings, envisions a new model for technology innovation which leverages the national labs, academic institutions and regional energy programs as part of the stimulus package. The DOE is about to release billions of dollars to states and local programs in energy efficiency (EE) and renewable energy (RE).

• $16B Energy Efficiency (EE) and Renewable Energy (RE)
• $8B Government building upgrades
• $6.5B Grid upgrades
• $22B tax rebates for solar, weatherization etc.
• $60B loan guarantees - new nuke, ethanol, bio-mass etc.
• $4.2B Block grants to states ($2.1B competitively awarded)
• $3.1B Qualified Conservation Bonds - not tax exempt, smaller grants for blended funding.

A big question is how to make these programs accountable? We are not going to get this money again, so effectiveness is critical.
Questions to consider...

1. What makes a partnership attractive to the feds?
2. What controls are there to insure money is well spent and the results are measured and then leveraged?
3. Rhetorically speaking, how do you take "programs/projects" and apply a multiplier?
4. What are the multipliers that can lead to exponential growth?
5. How do we take these investments and make them scalable?
6. How do we (the country) learn from the mistakes quickly and fix them?

Hypothesis...

What I've learned from huge IT implementations is that when you want to roll out large, highly distributed programs, you design for replication. This includes developing design patterns and creating artifacts which can be reused. The counties and states are designing projects and not thinking about exponential growth. There needs to be a third entity, like a PMO, who focuses on building the multiplier effect into this money. We need to leverage these $$ by designing for similarities, identifying standards, agreeing to processes for expansion and roll out. Clearly, the fed cannot micro-manage. But, can we afford a broadcast approach, where you throw the seeds out and see what grows? We desperately need to be more disciplined than that. In 18-24 months if there are not sufficient things to show for the investment, it will be a political nightmare.

Next a model for rapid growth...

I am agnostic, yet passionate, when it comes to approaches to organizing programs or initiatives relative to stakeholder engagement and governance. Most importantly, it needs to work – rather than meet a pedagogy. While an advisor may have preferences, often folks have a methodology, which they prefer and that is to be respected. Flexibility and adaptability are far more important than declarations of "there is one right way." So, while there are many different approaches to structure a stakeholder or governance strategy, which method or approach you use ultimately depends on the developmental phase of your group and what outcomes you seek through your effort.

As examples - I have used straight-forward models such as Discover, Define, Design, Deploy arrangements. On other engagements we have applied Rational Unified Process (RUP), which can also be used for designing governance and standards organizations. Even Xtreme Engineering can be a useful method. And then there are numerous frameworks such as open source governance models for IT or sustainability such as CobIT and FISDEV and the CMMi or the Competency Maturity Model Integration.

One approach that I think is particularly successful, looks at the definition, creation and management of a governance or multi-stakeholder body through the lenses of - Materiality, Completeness and Responsiveness.

- Materiality means "knowing what is important to you and your stakeholders."

- Completeness represents the practice of "understanding your impact and what stakeholders think of you."

- Responsiveness is the principle of "coherently responding to stakeholders concerns."

The three lenses provide a bridge of sorts linking together the three primary phases of stakeholder engagement, Thinking and Planning, Preparing and Engaging, Responding and Measuring. Within each phase are a series of tasks which must be completed to a level of "doneness" that will allow an organization to move on to the next task or phase. Some of these tasks may occur in series or in parallel or even iteratively. For example the task of identifying stakeholders by its nature supports the identification of material issues, which in turn identifies additional stakeholders.

The following is a high-level example of how I have organized a Stakeholder Strategy. The bullets are milestones that can be woven together to form an approach for your initiative:

Phase I - Think and Plan

• Identify and convene owners responsible for the success of this initiative
• Conduct current state analysis such as internal and external assessments or benchmarking and competitive analysis
• Identify stakeholders who are relevant and share material concerns
• Establish a common ground of values and ethics upon which to build the future
• Identify, document and research material concerns
• Determine and define an engagement strategy
• Develop road map
• Establish an engagement plan and an implementation schedule

Phase II - Preparing and Engaging

• Enable stakeholders to own outcomes through participation in the identification, design and creation of solutions to problems and opportunities.
• Identify ways of engaging that work and will produce value
• Build competency and capacity amongst stakeholders as a framework for success Engage with stakeholders to facilitate understanding, learning and improvement

Phase III - Responding and Measuring

• Mitigate risk through feedback and measurement - never stray too far from your values, vision and goals
• Conduct a gap analysis to identify what is being measured, what needs to be measured, what do stakeholders need measured to provide credibility
• Operationalize, internalize and communicate learning
• Measure, assess, and communicate performance
• Assess, re-map, re-define

This model is derived from the AccountAbility AA1000ES Assurance Framework for Stakeholder Engagement.