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Achieving sustainable biowaste management is a key challenge for cities worldwide. In this context, biowaste valorization is an indispensable option for managing unavoidable biowaste and reducing the associated methane emissions. Several innovations that enable biowaste valorization are technologically mature. However, their implementation is still limited in most cities around the world. Therefore, it is essential to better understand the different pathways towards implementing biowaste valorization. This paper presents a case-study of two countries at different phases in their transition to biowaste valorization: Sweden as a case at a mature phase and Greece as a case at a formative phase. We apply the Technological Innovation Systems framework to investigate how innovation systems for biowaste valorization develop and associated path-dependencies. Our findings show that various path-dependence lock-ins can occur at different transition phases. Our empirical insights suggest that a focus on the diffusion of certain mature innovations can support the growth of biowaste valorization systems. However, it can also lead to path-dependence lock-ins that influence the systems' resilience to shocks. We thus recommend decision-makers to pursue balance between the rapid diffusion of mature innovations for biowaste valorization and parallel support for experimenting with more radical innovations to harness the systems' resilience to shocks., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)

Research funding systems fundamentally influence how science operates. This paper aims to analyze the allocation of competitive research funding from different perspectives: How reliable are decision processes for funding? What are the economic costs of competitive funding? How does competition for funds affect doing risky research? How do competitive funding environments affect scientists themselves, and which ethical issues must be considered? We attempt to identify gaps in our knowledge of research funding systems; we propose recommendations for policymakers and funding agencies, including empirical experiments of decision processes and the collection of data on these processes. With our recommendations, we hope to contribute to developing improved ways of organizing research funding., Competing Interests: Competing interests statement:The authors declare no competing interest.

This study introduces a distributed electrified heating approach that is able to innovate chemical engineering involving endothermic reactions. It enables rapid and uniform heating of gaseous reactants, facilitating efficient conversion and high product selectivity at specific equilibrium. Demonstrated in catalyst-free CH 4 pyrolysis, this approach achieves stable production of H 2 (530 g h -1 L reactor ) and carbon nanotube/fibers through 100% conversion of high-throughput CH -1 at 1150 °C, surpassing the results obtained from many complex metal catalysts and high-temperature technologies. Additionally, in catalytic CH 4 at 1150 °C, surpassing the results obtained from many complex metal catalysts and high-temperature technologies. Additionally, in catalytic CH 4 and CO 4 conversion rates, and syngas production capacity. This innovative heating approach eliminates the need for elongated reactor tubes and external furnaces, promising an energy-concentrated and ultra-compact reactor design significantly smaller than traditional industrial systems, marking a significant advance towards more sustainable and efficient chemical engineering society.2 conversion rates, and syngas production capacity. This innovative heating approach eliminates the need for elongated reactor tubes and external furnaces, promising an energy-concentrated and ultra-compact reactor design significantly smaller than traditional industrial systems, marking a significant advance towards more sustainable and efficient chemical engineering society., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

Background: Home care is beset with work environment issues and high staff turnover, while research concerned with interventions to improve the work environment is sparse. Few of the existing interventions apply a participative approach, despite this being associated with more positive outcomes and sustainable change. This paper presents a framework, rooted in action research and action learning, for participatory work environment interventions in home care, and demonstrates how this framework has been implemented in four Swedish home care organizations., Methods: The framework has three phases (pre-intervention, intervention planning and intervention implementation) and consists of cycles of action and reflection in three constellations: a group of researchers, a reference group with labour market organization representatives and home care managers, and intervention work groups in the home care organizations. The work was documented and analysed with focus on the realization of the framework and challenges that were met on the way. The interventions were evaluated using a pre-/post-test questionnaire design., Results: Parts of the framework were successfully implemented. The pre-intervention phase and the intervention planning phase, with intervention work groups, worked well. All four groups identified one intervention relevant to their own context. However, only two of the proposed interventions were fully implemented and evaluated. The high staff and management turnover, and the high rate of organizational changes made it impossible to evaluate the interventions statistically. Yet, data from open-ended questions in the post questionnaire showed that the two implemented interventions were perceived as successful., Conclusions: The participatory framework, presented in this paper, seems promising for work environment interventions in home care. The framework was designed to reduce the risk of known disturbances affecting the process in unstable organizations. Despite this, it proved challenging to execute the framework, and especially the interventions, due to changes happening at high speed. In the two cases where organizational changes were not dominating, the interventions were implemented successfully. While the prerequisites for participation and successful implementation could be improved somewhat, the main issue, the instability of the organizational context, is hard for researchers or the individual home care units to tackle alone., (© 2022. The Author(s).)