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?

The recent rise of populism has not only threatened democratic norms, international cooperation and linguistic practices, but has also contradicted leading theories in political science. As a result, it remains imperative to develop a policy-relevant and empirically validated explanation of why populism has re-emerged. The purpose of this research stay is to explore the contributions that the theory of socio-cultural viability pioneered by Dame Mary Douglas and related concepts can make to this explanation. It aims to do so setting up two collaborative research projects that will bring together the many scholars at Dutch universities working with this approach. Both projects will be based on, and rigorously test, the clumsy solutions-hypothesis that has been derived from Douglas’ framework. One of the projects will focus on governance failure and success in the Netherlands. The other will address the policy failures and successes of the European Union. Thus, the research stay will be dedicated to developing a more satisfactory explanation of the return of populism.

The world of infrastructures is confronted with a mountain range of challenges, i.e., urbanisation, digitalisation, the energy transition and increased attention for climate change and sustainability that collectively call for a major transition in infrastructure management. The ever-increasing intertwinement of infrastructures, i.e. physical and digital interconnections and their interactions, warrants that infrastructure managers plan and operate in a coordinated fashion as if they were one infrastructure. Such a ‘system-of-systems’ (SoS) approach requires both enhanced coordination and collaboration (i.e. integration), and specification and allocation of tasks (i.e. differentiation). Digitalisation offers great potential to cost-effectively speed up the transition to a SoS approach through enhanced sharing of data that allows coordinated planning and decision-making. At the same time, a SoS approach entails many governance challenges related to IT (e.g. deciding on and coordinating systems, content and flows), the organisations involved (e.g. dealing with differing objectives, sharing investments versus returns) and the regulatory frameworks under which the various infrastructures operate (e.g. dealing with sector-specific laws and regulations, especially in relation to broader welfare aspects of activities and investments). These challenges and the substantial efforts and investments involved require that infrastructure managers carefully consider when a SoS approach is meaningful. The VIA AUGUSTA project will help infrastructure managers understand in what situations a SoS approach can be meaningful (i.e. leveraging such an approach without compromising individual infrastructures) and how to facilitate such an approach by means of effective IT governance (ITG), inter-organisational governance (IOG) and regulatory governance (RG) frameworks.

Over the past years, the growth of electricity and gas regulation in Europe has been accompanied by the proliferation of a wide variety of ?regulators? (public, private, non-governmental) at multiple levels of governance (local, national, international). This proliferation is said to result in duplication and overlap and, as such, conflicts with established notions of efficiency. Not all duplication and overlap constitute waste, however. A level of redundancy may make multilevel regulatory systems more reliable as well as more responsive to a variety of interests. While analytical tools have been devised to establish under which conditions redundancy is valuable, scholars have (1) focused on reliability only, (2) neglected the (strategic) interaction of regulatory actors, and/or (3) considered (single) organisations instead of (multi-level) systems. Hence, I will investigate the conditions under which redundancies in multilevel systems lead to both reliable and responsive regulatory governance. I address the following question: when is it better to have various regulators at multiple levels of governance performing the same task than one regulator at a single governance level? I will (1) define and operationalize various types of redundancy in multilevel regulatory systems and (2) determine the difference in performance of the system with various types of redundancy against the various costs of maintaining them. On the basis of this novel approach, I investigate the redundancies in the highly complex multilevel system to regulate the transportation of electricity and gas in the EU. In recent years this system has seen an extraordinary amount of regulatory activity to ensure affordable, secure and sustainable energy. Yet, there is no single regulatory actor that has sole jurisdiction; multiple regulatory actors are tasked with enacting and enforcing rules, potentially hindering technological and market developments.

Cycling booms in many Dutch cities. While smart cycling innovations promise to increase cycling?s modal share in the (peri-)urban transport system even further, little is understood of their impact or cost and benefit. The ?Smart Cycling Futures (SCF)? program investigates how smart cycling innovations ─ including ICT-enabled cycling innovations, infrastructures, and social innovations like new business models ─ contribute to more resilient and liveable Dutch urban regions. Cycling innovations benefit urban regions in terms of accessibility, equality, health, liveability, and decreasing CO2-emissions when socially well embedded. To facilitate a transition to a sustainable future that respond to pressing issues, the SCF research project runs urban living labs in close collaboration with key stakeholders to develop transdisciplinary insights in the conditions needed for upscaling smart-cycling initiatives. Each living lab involving real-world experiments responds to the urgent challenges that urban regions and their stakeholders face today. The proposed research sub-programs focus on institutional dynamics, entrepreneurial strategies, governance and the socio-spatial conditions for smart cycling. Going beyond analysis, we also assess the economic, social, and spatial impacts of cycling on urban regions. The research program brings together four Dutch regions through academic institutions (three general and one applied-science universities); governmental authorities (urban and regional); and market players (innovative entrepreneurs). Together, they answer practice-based questions in a transdisciplinary and problem-oriented fashion. Research in the four regions generates both region-specific and universally applicable findings. Finally, SCF uses its strong research-practice network around cycling to co-create the research and run an outreach program.