The aim of TIPPING⁺ is to generate a unique transdisciplinary social science analytical framework to respond to the following intertwined questions:

• Why at one or several points in time Coal and Carbon Intensive Regions (CCIRs) flip into fundamentally different development trajectories and embrace low carbon, clean-energy transformations?

• What are the actual effects of such fundamental changes on the livelihoods and the sustainability of regional economies and social-ecological systems?

• How can the knowledge from the recent past about the multiple social-ecological processes leading to sudden and fundamental changes in these regions be used to identify the most effective tipping interventions that enact low-carbon, clean-energy transitions in other regions?

TIPPING⁺ produces a step-wise advance in the scientific understanding of the critical concept of Social-Ecological Tipping Points (SETPs) to show how a much more robust and empirically-grounded theory of SETPs can be applied to support successful clean-energy transitions in CCIRs.