Big dreams and small steps: understanding regional policy networks and what they achieve

Regional networks have been established across Europe to help improve the delivery of public services. But how effective are these networks at fostering innovation? Nicolette van Gestel and Sanne Grotenbreg present findings from a study of regional networks involved in labour market policy in the Netherlands. They show that despite a variety of partnerships being established, new and bold solutions to complex problems remain scarce

Government facilitation of external initiatives: how Dutch water authorities cope with value dilemmas

Water authorities search for new collaborations with non-governmental actors, with the aim of facilitating societal initiatives. A comparative case study was conducted to analyze the value dilemmas faced by water authorities when they choose to facilitate and how they cope with these dilemmas. The study found that the most prevalent dilemma is between traditional democratic values and efficiency-related values. In the chosen solutions, the latter seem to prevail over the former. Casuistry, cycling and hybridization are common coping mechanisms. The study shows the potential of non-governmental initiatives in the water sector while also reflecting critically on dominant administrative values

Realizing innovative public waterworks: Aligning administrative capacities in collaborative innovation processes

The importance of government support for innovation is widely acknowledged, but the way governments support innovation is changing. We discern three trends: local innovation policies are gaining importance; governments increasingly choose a bottom-up, tailor-made approach to sup

Government Facilitation: Dilemmas of the Enabling State

Public authorities are exploring new ways to collaborate with non-governmental – public and private – actors. Recently, authorities increasingly seem to opt to facilitate the initiatives of these actors. Not much is yet known about what facilitating authorities actually do, what their struggles and successes are, and with what effects they facilitate non-governmental initiatives. This research aims to answer the question: Why, how, and with what effects do governments facilitate the actions of non-governmental actors to create public value? This question is answered by conducting five in-depth studies of cases in which Dutch water authorities facilitate, or aim to facilitate, non-governmental initiatives. The initiatives are taken by private actors and by an NGO. The difficulties and dilemmas that facilitating authorities face are analysed, just as the way they can deal with these. Different forms of government facilitation are distinguished. Furthermore, the dynamics of governm

The U-Turn in Government Facilitation

Public authorities in infrastructure, aiming to facilitate societal initiatives, explore new forms of collaboration with nongovernmental actors. A comparative case study of two Dutch initiatives is conducted: energy generation at a public dam and the realization of a nature reserve. It is analyzed how and why the authorities’ strategy regarding their nongovernmental partners changes over time. Authorities’ strategy change is modeled on two axes: governmental investments and governmental influence, and a differentiation is made between limited facilitation, invitational facilitation, partnering, and Design, Build, Finance, Maintain, and Operate. A U-turn-shaped pattern in authorities’ strategy is found: Authorities move from partnering to limited facilitation and subsequently revert to invitational facilitation. Institutional factors, process factors, and initiative characteristics are identified that explain the strategy changes. It is concluded that government facilitation is a dynamic, interactive process and that authorities adapt their strategy to the initiative at hand and are pragmatic in their approach

What makes public-private partnerships work? Survey research into the outcomes and the quality of cooperation in PPPs

Public–private partnerships (PPPs) are often regarded as the solution for time and budget overruns in large infrastructural projects, but not all are successful. This raises the question of what really makes PPPs work. Focusing on the role of relational aspects, this article examines the degree to which trust and managerial activities correlate to the perceived performance and cooperation process in PPP projects. A multilevel analysis of survey data from 144 respondents involved in Dutch PPP projects shows that both trust and management correlate significantly to the perceived performance of these projects. Moreover, trust is associated with a good cooperation process

Differential regulation of effector- and central-memory responses to Toxoplasma gondii infection by IL-12 revealed by tracking of Tgd057-specific CD8+ T cells

10.1371/journal.ppat.1000815PLoS Pathogens6

UV-induced ligand exchange in MHC class I protein crystals

High-throughput structure determination of protein−ligand complexes is central in drug development and structural proteomics. To facilitate such high-throughput structure determination we designed an induced replacement strategy. Crystals of a protein complex bound to a photosensitive ligand are exposed to UV light, inducing the departure of the bound ligand, allowing a new ligand to soak in. We exemplify the approach for a class of protein complexes that is especially recalcitrant to high-throughput strategies: the MHC class I proteins. We developed a UV-sensitive, “conditional”, peptide ligand whose UV-induced cleavage in the crystals leads to the exchange of the low-affinity lytic fragments for full-length peptides introduced in the crystallant solution. This “in crystallo” exchange is monitored by the loss of seleno-methionine anomalous diffraction signal of the conditional peptide compared to the signal of labeled MHC β2m subunit. This method has the potential to facilitate high-throughput crystallography in various protein families

Toxoplasma gondii Superinfection and Virulence during Secondary Infection Correlate with the Exact [ROP5 over ROP18] Allelic Combination

The intracellular parasite Toxoplasma gondii infects a wide variety of vertebrate species globally. Infection in most hosts causes a lifelong chronic infection and generates immunological memory responses that protect the host against new infections. In regions where the organism is endemic, multiple exposures to T. gondii likely occur with great frequency, yet little is known about the interaction between a chronically infected host and the parasite strains from these areas. A widely used model to explore secondary infection entails challenge of chronically infected or vaccinated mice with the highly virulent type I RH strain. Here, we show that although vaccinated or chronically infected C57BL/6 mice are protected against the type I RH strain, they are not protected against challenge with most strains prevalent in South America or another type I strain, GT1. Genetic and genomic analyses implicated the parasite-secreted rhoptry effectors ROP5 and ROP18, which antagonize the host’s gamma interferon-induced immunity-regulated GTPases (IRGs), as primary requirements for virulence during secondary infection. ROP5 and ROP18 promoted parasite superinfection in the brains of challenged survivors. We hypothesize that superinfection may be an important mechanism to generate T. gondii strain diversity, simply because two parasite strains would be present in a single meal consumed by the feline definitive host. Superinfection may drive the genetic diversity of Toxoplasma strains in South America, where most isolates are IRG resistant, compared to North America, where most strains are IRG susceptible and are derived from a few clonal lineages. In summary, ROP5 and ROP18 promote Toxoplasma virulence during reinfection