Tackling the multi-actor and multi-level complexity of European governance of knowledge: Transnational actors in focus

Abstract

This special issue is one of the first systematic attempts to map and investigate relevant transnational actors in European knowledge governance, highlighting the differences and commonalities in their structures, identities, and roles, as well as the links in which they are embedded, and the influence they can exert in knowledge policy formation. The introduction sets the stage for five empirical contributions focusing on different types of actors – an expert group, two university alliances, three student unions, the academic associations, and an advocacy coalition of individuals with strong institutional positions in one national science policy system. It provides an overview of various theoretical perspectives informing these studies, explores connections between them and discusses implications for a future research agenda. The introduction demonstrates how transnational actors matter for the European governance of knowledge, and calls for a cross-fertilization of different disciplinary perspectives, in particular comparative politics and organizational sociology, as a way forward.