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Purpose: This study aims to discuss science governance in Europe and the network of associated nonprofit institutions. The authors posit that this network, which comprises both (partial) learning organizations and non-learning organizations, has been observed to postpone taking up "responsibility" as an issue in science governance and funding decisions. Design/methodology/approach: This paper discusses the challenge of learning and policy implementation within the European science governance system. By exploring how learning on responsible innovation (RI) in this governance system can be provoked, it addresses the question how Senge's insights in organizational learning can clarify discourses on and practices of RI and responsibility in research. This study explores the potential of a new organizational form, that of Social Labs, to support learning on Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) in standing governance organizations. Findings: This study concludes that Social Labs are a suitable format for enacting the five disciplines as identified by Senge, and a Social Lab may turn into a learning organization, be it a temporary one. Responsibility in research and innovation is conducive for learning in the setting of a Social Lab, and Social Labs act as intermediary organizations, which not merely pass on information among actors but also actively give substantive shape to what they convey from a practice-informed, normative orientation. Research limitations/implications: This empirical work on RRI-oriented Social Labs therefore suggests that Social Lab-oriented temporary, intermediary learning organizations present a promising form for implementing complex normative policies in a networked, nonhierarchical governance setting. Practical implications: Based on this research funding and governance organizations in research, policy-makers in other domains may take up and create such intermediary organizations to aid learning in (science) governance. Social implications: This research suggests that RRI-oriented Social Labs present a promising form for implementing complex normative policies, thus integrate learning on and by responsible practices in various governance settings. Originality/value: European science governance is characterized by a network of partial Learning Organization (LOs) and Non-Learning Organization (nLOs) who postpone decision-making on topics around "responsibility" and "solving societal challenges" or delegate authority to reviewers and individual actors, filtering possibilities for collaborative transformation toward RRI. social lab (SLs) are spaces that can address social problems or social challenges in an open, action-oriented and creative manner. As such, they may function as temporary, intermediary LOs bringing together diverse actors from a specific context to work on and learn about issues of science and society where standing organizations avoid doing so. Taken together, SLs may offer temporary organizational structures and spaces to move beyond top-down exercise of power or lack of real change to more open, deliberative and creative forms of sociopolitical coordination between multiple actors cutting across realms of state, practitioners of research and innovation and civil society. By taking the role of temporary LOs, they may support existing research and innovation organizations and research governance to become more flexible and adaptive.

• Transition experiments can be connected translocally across space and scale. • Multi-sited transition programs can support translocal experimentation. • We empirically unravel the translocal dynamics of transition experiments. • We explicate four overarching challenges in multi-sited transition programs. • This requires novel ways of designing and evaluating transition governance. Transition experiments are important instruments to foster sustainability transitions. Transition scholars increasingly suggest investigating how multiple local experiments can become connected across spatial scales, and how transformative dynamics of multiple connected experiments can be facilitated and governed. In this paper we analyze the different types of translocal dynamics involved in simultaneously governing multiple experiments in multi-sited transition programs, by empirically exploring the FIT4FOOD2030 program (2017-2020) that supported 25 transition experiments. Then, we present four overarching challenges in governing translocal experimentation: (1) finding synergies between diverging local needs and program ambitions; (2) navigating the cross-scale political dynamics in multi-sited transition programs; (3) moving beyond output-oriented evaluation frameworks in order to capture transformative efforts of short-term programs; and (4) expanding the boundaries of programs by linking to ongoing policy developments in highly complex multi-level governance settings. We hope our work can inform transition governance efforts in fostering transformative translocal dynamics toward sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An increasing number of firms try to implement corporate social responsibility (CSR) from the perspective of sustainable development. This article considers these efforts in the light of the changing relation between the state, society and the corporate sector, as a result of which governance increasingly takes the shape of a society-centred practice. The article focuses on stimulating governance through initiating learning processes among companies as a strategy for implementing CSR. It analyses the conditions under which learning may take place and may translate into action. To that end, it draws from the experiences of a comprehensive programme on CSR organized by the Dutch National Initiative for Sustainable Development (NIDO) which set out to accelerate transformation processes towards sustainable business by (i) facilitating learning among company representatives, (ii) assisting them to convey the insights gained to their respective companies, and (iii) influencing the contextual conditions that may incite companies to adopt CSR. The article argues that the ability to induce processes of learning and structural change renders the approach developed in the NIDO programme a viable contribution to realizing public policy ambitions by tapping into the dynamics of private organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]