Collaborative Governance and Public Innovation in Northern Europe

Author(s): Hanneke Gieske and Arwin van Buuren

DOI: 10.2174/9781681080130115010011

Collaborative Innovation Processes in Dutch Regional Water Governance - The Role of Niches and Policy Entrepreneurs in Fostering (Strategic) Policy Innovation

Pp: 157-179 (23)

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Abstract

SHS investigation development is considered from the geographical and historical viewpoint. 3 stages are described. Within Stage 1 the work was carried out in the Department of the Institute of Chemical Physics in Chernogolovka where the scientific discovery had been made. At Stage 2 the interest to SHS arose in different cities and towns of the former USSR. Within Stage 3 SHS entered the international scene. Now SHS processes and products are being studied in more than 50 countries.

Abstract

In this chapter, we investigate how collaborative governance contributes to spurring innovation in regional water management. We analyze a collaborative innovation effort in regional water management in The Netherlands. In a unique endeavour, nine municipalities united in a city region and a regional water authority, together with private parties, crafted a joint innovation program aimed at developing new knowledge and innovative solutions for persistent inundation problems in the area. In addition to innovative solutions in selected experimental areas, the collaborative effort gave rise to a paradigm shift in regional inundation protection policy – from a norm-oriented approach to a more modern, adaptive, effect-oriented approach. We apply a multilevel perspective to analyze the (co-evolving) developments at three levels: the macro level of the national (policy) landscape, the meso level of the regional water management regime, and the micro level of experimental areas or niches. Our analysis reveals that learning processes on these three levels are important to trigger policy innovation, but that these processes have to become connected by the deliberate interventions of policy entrepreneurs to really result in a paradigm shift.

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