Transition Engineering Lab

01/04/2026

The manufactured products we use produce more than 10% of total greenhouse gas emissions. This is mostly from processing heat and producing the materials used in products.

The Transition Lab hosted a German engineer in a residency programme. The engineer, Lisa, had been working with a German orthopaedic device company on sustainabiltiy of their processes and products. But they had determined that they faced a wicked problem, so a job for Transition Engineering.

Lisa and Florian Ahrens worked through the Transition Engineering processes and came up with something that the manufacturer had not considered before. The most durable and best performing material for the devices is a very permanent plastic. There was no suitable alternative from the company, doctor or patient point of view. There is absolutely no way to recycle the permanent plastic, and no destructive disposal

The novel idea was to consider each item produced as a permanent object of value. Each devide is made for a specific patient for a specific problem. Rather than thinking of this as a one-off, keep a precise record of each item, and return it to a devide library. Then use AI to search the library for matches for future patients. Statistically, all the devices should find a number of future lives to improve, and should never be disposed of. Things of value, manufactured from permanent materials are an asset, if you build the measurement, catalogue, library, and search engine to provide the future value.

Brilliant!

The manufacturer is now working with TU-Chemnits to engineer the transition of their product system to a truely circular value model.

The Transition Lab welcomes residents from companies, local councils or other universities. Give us a couple of weeks and a really wicked problem, and we will help you with your first Transitioneering project. It would be even better if you take the Transition Engineering on line course first.

A paper describing the Transition Engineering process applied to this manufacturing problem was published in the journal "Sustainability" which is open-access.

Ahrens, F., Nettlenbusch, L-M., Krumdieck, S. (2025). Sustainable healthcare plastic products; Application of the Transition Engineering design approach yields a novel concept for circularity and sustainability, Sustainability, 17(10), 4672.

Durable plastics are a sustainability challenge for healthcare products. Orthopedic products are regulated with strict specifications for human tissue interactions. Healthcare engineers and managers select plastic to meet the full range of material properties. Plastic is plentiful, low cost, and rel...

23/02/2026

Professor Susan Krumdieck and Dr. Paolo Cherubini were invited to the Global Challenges Scholars Programme (GCSP) Network meeting at Sapienza University, Rome in Feb 2026. The presentation gives the panel and workshop introduction to Transition Engineering for GCSP Scholars and Educators.

The GCSP Network (https://gcspnetwork.org/) is a community of students, alumni, faculty, and staff at more than 100 institutions around the world focused on preparing and supporting interdisciplinary globally minded leaders to solve global challenges facing society today. Each institution in the network has an active Grand Challenges Scholars Program that provides undergraduate students in engineering and other disciplines with opportunities to gain diverse mindsets and skills to address grand challenges. Students who complete the GCSP graduate as Grand Challenges Scholars, recognized by the National Academy of Engineering (NAE).

The MSc in Renewable and Sustainable Energy Transition (MSc ReSET) at Heriot-Watt University includes a course that covers the principles, approach, systems methods and tools in Transition Engineering, and a real-world practice Energy Transition Engineering Lab course. Prof Krumdieck is preparing the case for the Transition Engineering programme at HWU to be a member of the GCSP Network. The Transition Engineering courses in the MSc ReSET or through the Engineering Management or Energy Engineering Masters align with the GCSP four themes:
- Sustainability
- Health
- Joy of Living
- Security

GCSP offers students the opportunity to tailor their curricular and co-curricular experiences towards meaningful work, discovery, and academic pursuits that contribute to solving global society’s most pressing challenges. Throughout their undergraduate education, students are required to engage in each of the five Mindsets needed to solve for Grand Challenges (Talent/Research; Viable Business/Entrepreneurship; Multidisciplinary; Multiculturalism; Social Consciousness). Students who receive GCSP Designation in their senior year of undergrad demonstrate their understanding and commitment to the five Mindsets and thus are equipped to make impactful contributions as professionals and scholars. GCSP students are prepared to use an interdisciplinary approach to problem solving, with engineering as the foundation for the multifaceted ways in which they view the world.

In order for undergraduate students, and PhD students, to also be eligible to receive GCSP Designation, we are also working on Summer School in Transition Engineering which provides the training and internship working on Transition Lab real-world projects in the Scottish Isles. Students who have completed the Transition Engineering training are eligible to apply for membership of the Global Association for Transition Engineering (GATE), and to submit their real-world project in their competency portfolio.

https://youtu.be/qopiMkE_Oew

Professor Susan Krumdieck and Dr. Paolo Cherubini were invited to the Global Challenges Scholars Programme (GCSP) Network meeting at Sapienza University, Rom...

31/01/2026

The ICNZ Transition Lab team hosted a two-day PhD summer school at the Heriot-Watt University Edinburgh campus. The summer school brought together over 10 PhD students from all schools, and two industry partners. The purpose of the summer school was to learn about the Systems Transition Engineering Processes (STEPs), by walking through the case study of applying them to one of the most pressing wicked problems of our time: the housing crisis.

Led by Professor Susan Krumdieck, the workshop flipped the perspective on unsustainable systems through Transition Engineering, while Professor Aseem Kinra explored the paradoxes embedded in the Wicked Problems arising from system transitions. Dr. Paolo Cherubini walked participants through the results of the Energy Transition Lab sprint on the Orkney Housing challenge, with powerful contributions from early research results of ICNZ PhD students Luyando Mbozi and Keji Soaga.

Participants engaged in hands-on sessions using the Systems Transition Engineering Processes (STEPs). The workshop culminated in a collaborative session where PhD students brainstormed how to integrate these methods into their own research.

It’s been a pleasure hosting this vibrant, interdisciplinary group in Edinburgh and showcasing how Heriot-Watt and the ICNZ are spearheading research for a just and equitable net zero transition.

23/01/2026

Contributing to Transforming Engineering Education

Over the five months Sept-Jan, Professor Krumideck has been part of an international project on Transforming Engineering Education. The project aims to catalyze the development of best practice guidelines and case studies for designing and enhancing the inclusion of climate resilience and sustainability topics in engineering higher education. The project was undertaken through discussion and shared learning about effective approaches and how to address challenges when creating engineering educational programs. The project was hosted by ICSI - International Coalition for Sustainable Infrastructure.

Professor Krumdieck contributed in a webinar on transdisciplinary approaches and systems thinking in engineering education highlighting the Transition Engineering courses at HWU.

The fourth session of the Transforming Engineering Education Learning Hub emphasised the integration of transdisciplinary approaches and systems thinking into engineering education

20/01/2026

Transitioneering for Primary School Learners
There are a lot of good reasons why parents drive their children to primary school - creating the infamous School Run traffic snarl and intense air pollution around schools. When we ran our first Transition Lab in Orkney, we responded to the ask by Glaitness Primary School students to help them fight climate change.
Through the Transition Lab steps, we discovered that there were some good reasons for children to walk or cycle to school in Kirkwall, and the most surprising was the freedom. The Transition Engineering Lab with the students resulted in a design for a learning programme for Transitioneering. The four learning units were mapped to the Scottish Curriculum for Excellence and are now being developed for delivery to other primary schools. Contact Sandy at L.Gunn@hw.ac.uk if you would like to get Transitioneering for your class.
The big news for this post is that our paper describing the Systems Transition Engineering Processes (STEPs), the design of the learniing programme, and the results was just published in an international journal!
F. Ahrens, S. Krumdieck, (2026) Driving systems transition through learning: a case study for net zero school transport in rural Scotland, Journal of Urban Mobility, Vol. 9, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.urbmob.2025.100177

20/01/2026

Transitioneering for Primary School Learners

There are a lot of good reasons why parents drive their children to primary school - creating the infamous School Run traffic snarl and intense air pollution around schools. When we ran our first Transition Lab in Orkney, we responded to the ask by Glaitness Primary School students to help them fight climate change.

Through the Transition Lab steps, we discovered that there were some good reasons for children to walk or cycle to school in Kirkwall, and the most surprising was the freedom. The Transition Engineering Lab with the students resulted in a design for a learning programme for Transitioneering. The four learning units were mapped to the Scottish Curriculum for Excellence and are now being developed for delivery to other primary schools. Contact Sandy at L.Gunn@hw.ac.uk if you would like to get Transitioneering for your class.

The big news for this post is that our paper describing the Systems Transition Engineering Processes (STEPs), the design of the learniing programme, and the results was just published in an international journal!

F. Ahrens, S. Krumdieck, (2026) Driving systems transition through learning: a case study for net zero school transport in rural Scotland, Journal of Urban Mobility, Vol. 9, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.urbmob.2025.100177

20/01/2026

2025 Scottish Green Energy Awards in Glasgow

Professors Aseem Kinra and Susan Krumdieck were nominated as "Champions of Renewable Energy" for their work in bringing together energy, supply chains, and purposeful prosperous change through Transition Engineering. They attended the awards ceremony in Glasgow as their nomination was selected as a finalist.

They have developed hands-on teaching in the MSc Renewable and Sustainable Energy Transition (MSc ReSET) which has seen enrolments grow seven-fold last year. They are also carrying out energy transition labs around the challenges of food supply chain resilience, housing affordability, transport liveability and electricity development without energy poverty.

"The SGEA was a great way to meet interesting people in all aspects of the green energy space, and to tell our ingenuity story in Orkney." said Prof. Kinra.

In the end they didn't wind the grand prize, but did find high interest in the research and education at HWU.

05/08/2025

Postcards from the Future 2125

The Orkney International Science Festival hosted a presentation of part of the Transition Engineering Lab research - namely "how do we learn from the future?". That is a good question.

The presentation involves setting up the approach of imagination-powered InTIME Travel, and then Professor Susan Krumdieck acting as tour guide on a short trip to Stromness 2125.

In this trip we were focused on asking locals in post-oil Stromness 2125 the question:
"How do people who need to be here for their livelihood find a place to call home that supports the wellbeing of household members and the community?"

We discovered some surprising things in 2125. Join in the research project by writing a "postcard from Stromenss 2125" to someone today who you think needs to know about what they have in the future that we need to get onto inventing now.

https://youtu.be/9FDhLeMFI8k?si=E6SdmhhG6fun_Og7

05/07/2025

We would love to have a local candidate from Scotland for our PhD fully funded scholarship in Orkney.
Do you know of a radically curious and capable engineer with interest in energy systems transition engineering?

Pass the word.

Funded research opportunities in the School of Energy, Geoscience, Infrastructure and Society at Heriot Watt University

29/06/2025

The first PhD in Transition Engineering awarded to Dr. Florian Ahrens.

Congratulations to Florian!

Thesis Title:
Transitioneering: an approach for dealing with the wicked problems encountered in systems transition engineering
with action design research case studies in travel behaviour, plastic products, agriculture, upstream oil business, and energy poverty.

Many in Orkney will know about one of the Transition Lab projects that Florian was instrumental in over the past three years:

> School Run to Net Zero with the students at Glaitness Primary
> Food Service Food Waste with NHS Balfour staff, OIC and Scottish Watter
> Energy Poverty in a Wind Rich Community with researchers from the DISPATCH project, OREF, THAW and a number of others
> Housing Crisis Finding a Place to Call Home with a wide range of stakeholders

The Transition Lab is now teaching the Transitioneering approach, using the methods, processes and tools, to take on the complex and "wicked problems" of shiftng away from unsustainable energies, and building resilient, robust and regenerative local needs-meeting systems. We are also teaching short courses and MSc courses using the playbook of Transitioneering Processes developed by Florian with the help of stakeholders in Orkney and research collaborators.

Florian is off to Technical University Chemnitz in Germany in August to take up a post-doc position and help establish the first Transition Lab in Germany!

The external examiner was Associate Professor Adam Cooper an expert in Engineering Policy from University College London, Science, Technology, Engineering and Public Policy (STEaPP). The chair was Associate Professor Wolf-Gerrit Fruh from the School of Engineering at HWU Edinburgh. Thanks to Adam's Place in Stromness for hosting the celebration meal.

29/06/2025

A delegation from Groningen, Holland visited the Orkney Transition Lab, and got a presentation from Professor Krumdieck outlining what the Transition Lab is all about. We start Transition Lab projects by focusing on defining the problem, and digging deeper than the stories we are used to, and right into the assumptions we are making about how things are. The process at the front door of the Transition Lab is the Stakeholder Clinic. The assumptions that we work to interrogate are that there are solutions that can come from somewhere else, from government or from some tech billionare that can fix what is going wrong. What if that assumption is wrong? What if we need to reverse engineer changes in promlematic systems from the ground up? Local people will need help of engineers and other professionals who have also flipped thier perspectives to look at building robust and resilient local systems.

The Groningen delegates heard about how the Transitioneering approach being developed in Orkney is now the basis for a first-ever disciplinary programme at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh. A good number of the delegates wanted to know more, downloaded the Transition Engineering book on the spot, and expressed interest in collaboration. Thank you Orkney folk for helping us do the research to develop these processes.

16/06/2025

Professor Krumdieck and Dr. Cherubini were invited to give keynote addresses and guest lectures at University of Pisa and Sapienza University Roma in May. They gave presentations on the Transition Engineering work underway in the Orkney Transition Engineering Lab. The work generated high interest amongst students and professors alike. In Rome we had a fruitful meeting with Professors and agreed to build a network around key concerns in engineering energy systems transitions.

The role of engineering in providing the needs of society is changing greatly - we now need to work on engineering the change of complex systems that the economy is not really prepared for. New capabilities in addition to engineering sciences and modelling include:
> Interdisciplinary Transition Invention, Engineering, and Management (InTIME) Design
> Adaptive Integrated Practice including Wellbeing
> Understanding Ecosystems, Nature Positive Engineering, and Anthroposystems
> Working with all communities, not just clients
> Working for the Future
> Convergence of Knowledge and Experience
> Exercising Shared Responsibility
> Continuous Respectful Learning from all Stakeholders
> Service Models that productively address Wicked Problems
> Standard Processes for Non-Standard Complex Situations
> Transition Labs supporting rapid technical viability assessment, intercultural relevance, adaptive capacity

Two hundred years ago, Heriot-Watt University took on the complex issues causing harm and upheaval through the Industrial Revolution by teaching workers the mechanics of machines and energy so they could work safely in this new and dangerous industrial ecosystem. We aim to lead on Systems Transition Engineering Processes (STEPs) for navigating the wicked problems of progress.

Professor Sergio Ulgiati, Dr Paolo Cherubini, Professor Susan Krumdieck, Professor Andrea Micangeli