The role of intermediaries in low carbon transitions - Empowering innovations to unlock district heating in the UK

The study suggests that intermediaries can play a role in supporting niche empowering processes. The existing institutional framework surrounding intermediary actors, and the geographical scale at which they work within that framework, are shown to be influential on actors' agency to choose their approach to empowering an innovation. The work highlights the potential for intermediaries to support the restructuring of this institutional framework to enable more radical 'stretch and transform' empowering activities.