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In the network society authorities increasingly loose the possibilities for autonomous policy-making. Social and economic issues transgress territorial boarders. Addressing such problems requires innovative and adaptive co-operation across several boarders. In essence, what is needed for effective governing, is hybrid governance across (sub-)national territorial boarders, across sectors and across the public-private divide. In different sectors new ways of governing, such as tripartite co-operations, and a growing use of ?alternative? governance instruments have been witnessed. Their effectiveness may very well depend on the context of the sector with its specific regulations. Intriguing question however is whether a governance arrangement that is solid in one context could prove to be beneficial in another context too. Mutual learning is vital for innovative urban and regional governance and regional law. That leads to the first research question: How, and to what extent, can policy and lawmakers learn from experiences with hybrid governance in different contexts? Hybrid governance is challenging, and it has, potentially, at least one downside: the difficult safeguarding of its democratic legitimacy. Traditional direct legitimisation has eroded, partly because it only provides direct legitimacy at one level whereas governance is nowadays multi-level. Besides, elected councils only represent citizens in places where the latter live and vote, while citizens are bound to have interests in places where they do not live (and vote) but work, recreate, or identify without the possibility of securing representation. Second research question is: How can democratic legitimacy be safeguarded in a context of hybrid governance?