From knowledge-intensive to transformative knowledge regions
In recent decades, societal challenges such as climate change, demographic shifts, resource scarcity, and growing inequalities have underscored the limitations of traditional regional development paradigms (Tödtling et al., 2022). Addressing these challenges requires more than incremental improvements; instead, they demand systemic transformations in how societies produce, consume, and govern themselves. In Europe, the – now age-old – Lisbon Agenda (European Council, 2000) established a regional development framework centred on fostering knowledge-intensive innovation and economic competitiveness. However, the more recent European Green Deal (European Commission, 2019) illustrates a paradigm shift, prioritizing the transformation of entire socio-technical systems and directing innovation to tackle ongoing sustainability challenges (Schot & Steinmueller, 2018).
This shift calls for a fundamental rethinking of the role, nature, and context of knowledge and innovation in regional development, and has prompted a surge of new perspectives and research in regional studies and related disciplines (Chlebna et al., 2024; Flanagan et al., 2023; Tödtling et al., 2022; Truffer & Coenen, 2012; Uyarra et al., 2019). Many of these studies interface with transition studies (Binz et al., 2020), and focus on topics such as the geographies of sustainable innovation (Hansen & Coenen, 2015), the multi-scalarity of sustainability transitions (Miörner & Binz, 2021), “green” regional path development (Boschma et al., 2017; Gibbs & Jensen, 2022; Gong et al., 2022; Grillitsch & Hansen, 2019), power imbalances and core-periphery relations (Vale et al., 2024), social innovation and participation (Butzin et al., 2024; Coenen & Morgan, 2020; Jeannerat & Lavanchy, 2024), the regionalization of mission-oriented policy (Henderson et al., 2024; van Winden & Carvalho, 2019), and challenge-oriented regional innovation systems (Trippl et al., 2024). While these studies implicitly challenge conventional rationales for regional innovation, they rarely address knowledge as an explicit research focus. Often, knowledge is treated imprecisely as an implicit vector of change, closely tied to technology and co-evolving with other resources in innovation systems.
At the same time, there is a long-standing tradition in regional studies of examining the nature and role of knowledge in regional development and innovation. For instance, some research schools draw on a the distinction between the dominant view of “knowledge as object” and a practice-based understanding of “knowing” (Bathelt & Glückler, 2011; Ibert, 2007). Others have analysed the production-consumption nexus in territorial knowledge dynamics (Jeannerat & Crevoisier, 2016), knowledge combinations at the business and regional levels using the analytical-synthetic-symbolic knowledge model (Asheim et al., 2017; Manniche et al., 2017; Strambach & Klement, 2012) and innovation biography approaches (Butzin & Widmaier, 2016). However, it is increasingly relevant to assess whether these conceptualizations and methodologies, among others, are adequate for examining and steering the knowledge dynamics required to address contemporary regional transformation challenges – namely as transformation-inducing knowledge (or, “transformative knowledge”) is fundamentally action-oriented, involves multi-actor and multi-local participatory contexts, and is subject to societal valuation processes.
The Special Issue responds to this context. Already theorized and considered as a key sustainability transition dimension in, for example, education studies (Rodríguez Aboytes & Barth, 2020; Urmetzer et al., 2020), the Special Issue will offer a platform to explore, from a systemic and territorial perspective, the conceptual, methodological, empirical and policy implications of “transformative knowledge” within and for regional development in today’s era of societal grand challenges.
We particularly encourage the submission of abstracts from non-European regions/cities as well as abstracts following quantitative and semi-quantitative approaches. Contributions may address one or more of the following (or related) specific questions and topics:
- The nature of transformative knowledge, knowing and learning: What are distinctive features of transformative knowledge and learning involved in sustainability transitions? To what extent and how are existing knowledge concepts and typologies from regional innovation studies, organization studies and other adjacent disciplines – such as the distinctions between tacit and codified knowledge, knowledge (object) and knowing (process), and the combinatorial knowledge bases model of analytical, synthetic, and symbolic knowledge – appropriate for studying sustainability transitions? What kinds of knowledge do regions and regional actors need to facilitate system-wide transformation?
- The territorial contexts for transformative knowledge: what kinds of regional conditions and geographical settings matter to co-create, activate and diffuse transformative knowledge? How do different types of regional and urban systems vary in this matter? Does transformative knowledge underpin new types of core-periphery relations? Which geographies, scales, sites and materialities matter to enact the “transformability” of knowledge?
- Knowledge actors in regional context: How do different types of actors create, enact and diffuse transformative knowledge in (and across) regions? How do civic and not-for-profits engage with companies and the private sector? What are the new possibilities and challenges for research, universities, and education institutions to play transformative roles and support transformative knowledge dynamics in regions? What is the impact on universities’ “third mission” strategy and regional engagement?
- Regional Policy and governance: What are the regional policy implications of a transformative knowledge paradigm? Which types of policy and regulation schemes support for the generation and diffusion of transformative knowledge? Which competences are needed by local and regional policy agents, and how do they shift from a competitiveness paradigm to envision and act upon transformative change?
References
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Bathelt, H., & Glückler, J. (2011). The Relational Economy. Oxford University Press. https://academic.oup.com/book/32779 https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199587384.001.0001
Binz, C., Coenen, L., Murphy, J. T., & Truffer, B. (2020). Geographies of transition—From topical concerns to theoretical engagement: A comment on the transitions research agenda. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 34, 1–3. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eist.2019.11.002
Boschma, R., Coenen, L., Frenken, K., & Truffer, B. (2017). Towards a theory of regional diversification: combining insights from Evolutionary Economic Geography and Transition Studies. Regional Studies, 51(1), 31–45. https://doi.org/10.1080/00343404.2016.1258460
Butzin, A., Rabadjieva, M., & Terstriep, J. (2024). Anchoring challenges through citizen participation in regional challenge-based innovation policies. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 52, 100856. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eist.2024.100856
Butzin, A., & Widmaier, B. (2016). Exploring Territorial Knowledge Dynamics through Innovation Biographies. Regional Studies, 50(2), 220–232. https://doi.org/10.1080/00343404.2014.1001353
Chlebna, C., Evenhuis, E., & Morales, D. (2024). Economic geography and planetary boundaries: Embracing the planet’s uncompromising call to action. Progress in Economic Geography, 2(2), 100021. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.peg.2024.100021
Coenen, L., & Morgan, K. (2020). Evolving geographies of innovation: existing paradigms, critiques and possible alternatives. Norsk Geografisk Tidsskrift – Norwegian Journal of Geography, 74(1), 13–24. https://doi.org/10.1080/00291951.2019.1692065
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Gibbs, D., & Jensen, P. D. (2022). Chasing after the wind? Green economy strategies, path creation and transitions in the offshore wind industry. Regional Studies, 56(10), 1671–1682. https://doi.org/10.1080/00343404.2021.2000958
Gong, H., Binz, C., Hassink, R., & Trippl, M. (2022). Emerging industries: institutions, legitimacy and system-level agency. Regional Studies, 56(4), 523–535. https://doi.org/10.1080/00343404.2022.2033199
Grillitsch, M., & Hansen, T. (2019). Green industry development in different types of regions. European Planning Studies, 27(11), 2163–2183. https://doi.org/10.1080/09654313.2019.1648385
Hansen, T., & Coenen, L. (2015). The geography of sustainability transitions: Review, synthesis and reflections on an emergent research field. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 17, 92–109. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eist.2014.11.001
Henderson, D., Morgan, K., & Delbridge, R. (2024). Putting missions in their place: micro-missions and the role of universities in delivering challenge-led innovation. Regional Studies, 58(1), 208–219. https://doi.org/10.1080/00343404.2023.2176840
Ibert, O. (2007). Towards a Geography of Knowledge Creation: The Ambivalences between ‘Knowledge as an Object’ and ‘Knowing in Practice’. Regional Studies, 41(1), 103–114. https://doi.org/10.1080/00343400601120346
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Jeannerat, H., & Lavanchy, P. (2024). Transformative social innovation in, of and by the city: Beyond mission-driven policy rationales. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 52, 100890. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eist.2024.100890
Manniche, J., Moodysson, J., & Testa, S. (2017). Combinatorial Knowledge Bases: An Integrative and Dynamic Approach to Innovation Studies. Economic Geography, 93(5), 480–499. https://doi.org/10.1080/00130095.2016.1205948
Miörner, J., & Binz, C. (2021). Towards a multi-scalar perspective on transition trajectories. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 40, 172–188. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eist.2021.06.004
Rodríguez Aboytes, J. G., & Barth, M. (2020). Transformative learning in the field of sustainability: A systematic literature review (1999-2019). International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, 21(5), 993–1013. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJSHE-05-2019-0168
Schot, J., & Steinmueller, W. E. (2018). Three frames for innovation policy: R&D, systems of innovation and transformative change. Research Policy, 47(9), 1554–1567. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.respol.2018.08.011
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Vale, M., Peponi, A., Carvalho, L., Veloso, A. P., Queirós, M., & Morgado, P. (2024). Are peripheral regions in troubled waters for sustainability transitions? A systematic analysis of the literature. European Urban and Regional Studies, 31(2), 116–131. https://doi.org/10.1177/09697764231194316
van Winden, W., & Carvalho, L. (2019). Intermediation in public procurement of innovation: How Amsterdam’s startup-in-residence programme connects startups to urban challenges. Research Policy, 48(9), 103789. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.respol.2019.04.013
Submission Instructions
Authors interested should email an extended abstract of about 800 words (excl. references) to all guest editors (Anna Butzin butzin@iat.eu, Luís Carvalho lcarvalho@fep.up.pt, Hugues Jeannerat hugues.jeannerat@unine.ch, Jesper Manniche jesper.manniche@crt.dk) by the 16th of May 2025.
All contributing authors will receive further information regarding the outcome of their abstract submission and the submission deadline for full papers following the call. The anticipated deadline for submission of full papers for peer review is 15th December 2025. All selected papers will be subject to the journal’s usual peer review process.
We welcome informal inquiries relating to the Special Issue, proposed topics, and potential fit with the Special Issue objectives. Please direct any questions on the Special Issue to the guest editors.