Editorial essay: ERL focus issue on technology and global change

Abstract The ERL Focus Issue on Technology and Global Change brings together 19 research articles, 4 perspectives, and 2 topical reviews on wide-ranging topics including innovation, policy, poverty alleviation, digitalisation, and modelling. Collectively, these 25 new articles help advance understanding of technology and global change, building on work 25 years ago by Arnulf Grübler whose system perspective in turn built on pioneering scholarship in evolutionary and institutional economics. In this editorial essay, we survey the 25 contributions to this Focus Issue and draw out some of the themes and ideas that define the research frontiers in this field.