Exploring dynamics and strategies of niche protection

Abstract

This paper focuses on the processes and strategies of advocates and opponents in creating, maintaining and/or contesting the protective spaces in which 'urgently needed' but 'risky' pharmaceutical innovations are managed. Drawing on transition literature and recent work on niche protection, this paper adds to the conceptualisation and empirical grounding of niche protection by studying the dynamics of protection, in particular the different phases of niche development. Moreover, the links between niche protection processes and protection strategies pursued by niche players are explored. Dynamics of niche protection are explored in two case studies: the monitoring of treatments for HIV and of a vaccination against pandemic influenza. We conclude that niche protection depends on interactions between network building, empowerment activities and the construction of a positive niche narrative vis-à-vis anti-narratives raised by actors outside the niche. Furthermore, the nature of learning within a niche and the niche's robustness are determined by whether the strategies are predominantly accommodating or restrictive.