Governing radical change through the emergence of a governance arrangement

International audienceThis chapter investigates the process through which radical change is governed. While previous work has mostly focused on emergence, we focus on initial diffusion and the conditions under which potential breakthrough innovations can get out of the ‘protected spaces in which they have been tested. We are thus interested in the collective efforts that are developed to ‘shape markets’ and to create, following Fligstein, relevant ‘market infrastructures’, that is the set of rules (what actors are allowed to do), of norms (what they ought to do) and of values (what they want to do). We follow analysts on the central role of arenas as the settings in which “individual and collective actors interact to define the cognitive and normative dimensions of a problem”. But we show, through the example of nanotechnology, that any new breakthrough technology drives to the emergence of multiple arenas proposing each their approaches and tools for governing the new technology. Studying for nanotechnology their internal dynamics, the articulations and alignments between arenas that have taken place, we analyse the conditions of ‘success’ of arenas. Successful arenas as those than manage to enrol new actors, enlarge their initial remit while seeing their ‘outputs’ taken over by other arenas. Four aspects matter for the effective success of an arena - all linked to legitimacy: the degree of specificity, the degree of openness, the level of transparency and the degree of structuration. This drives us to propose the notion of governance arrangement to characterise the specific alignment between arenas and the robust compromise that enables the stabilisation of market infrastructures. Until the governance arrangement is set, existing uncertainties (technical or social) do not allow actors to move forward in the development of innovations and markets are not structured because the market infrastructures have not been agreed upon

The role of regional institutional entrepreneurs in the emergence of clusters in nanotechnologies

In the case of new technologies like nanotechnology, institutional entrepreneurs appear who have to act at different levels (organizational, regional, national) at the same time. We reconstruct, in some detail, the history of two cases, in Grenoble and in Twente/Netherlands. An intriguing finding is that institutional entrepreneurs build their environment before changing their institution. They first mobilize European support to convince local and national levels before actual cluster building occurs. Only later will there be reactions against any de-institutionalisation caused at the base location. The Dutch case shows another notable finding: when mobilizing support the entrepreneur will have to agree to further conditions, and then ends up in a different situation (a broad national consortium) than originally envisaged (the final cluster involved a collaboration of Twente with two other centres). In general, an institutional entrepreneur attempts to create momentum, and when this is achieved, he has to follow rather than lead it.INSTITUTIONAL ENTREPRENEUR; DEINSTITUTIONALISATION; CLUSTER; LOCATION; EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES; PROMISE; NANOTECHNOLOGY

Coping with standard diversity: An analytical framework - The standard life cycle

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Supporting Frontier Research, Which Institutions and Which Processes: Some Initial Considerations

International audienceThe chapter deals with ‘frontier research’ as a concept to organise public intervention in science and questions the choices made in Europe with the creation of a specific agency, the European Research Council. It shows how politically driven the emergence of the concept was both in the US and in Europe. It presents the very different organisational choices that have been made in Europe and in the US, but also within the US. This drives to analyse Frontier research through two lenses: as a process highlighting organisational implications, and as part of knowledge dynamics highlighting the need for keeping the link with substantive aspects and thus the need for cognitive specificity. These lenses are then applied to look at the ERC trying to address three questions: does the process selected will produce ‘excellent’ rather than ‘frontier’ science? Will it help addressing the perceived ‘quantitative’ gap in frontier science between the US and Europe? Will it be able to cope with diversity in knowledge dynamics? The answers are not straightforward and drive to suggest an evolution of the ERC being not only one more agency among the existing funding agencies in Europe, but also the ‘agency of agencies’ to be in a position to focus on ‘scientific grand challenges’

Transnational Governance Arrangements: Legitimate Alternatives to Regulating Nanotechnologies?

In recent years, the development and the use of engineered nanomaterials have generated many debates on whether these materials should be part of the new or existing regulatory frameworks. The uncertainty, lack of scientific knowledge and rapid expansion of products containing nanomaterials have added even more to the regulatory dilemma with policy makers and public/private actors contenting periods of both under and over regulation. Responding to these regulatory challenges, as well as to the global reach of nanotechnology research and industrial needs, governance arrangements beyond the state have addressed the challenge head-on. This article focuses on the governance arrangements of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), which has led to the development of numerous “horizontal anticipatory standards” with an important role in setting the foundation for science, technology and market development. During the course of its operation ISO has broadened its scope to address not only technical issues related to the concept and the size of nanomaterials but also broader aspects of the technology, including health, environment and safety issues. The increasing relevance of the ISO to regulate economic relations and achieve certain public policy goals has given rise to many concerns about its legitimacy. The important questions are whether these governance arrangements may be deemed as being legitimate and where this legitimacy is derived from? What are the main sources of legitimacy at the transnational level and how we can apply them to analyse nanotechnology standardization? This article provides concise answers to these questions. It focuses at the normative concepts of democratic and scientific legitimacy and explores the institutional structures and processes by which nanotechnology standards are established