Network governance is considered a new form of organizing or a new way of getting things done. Network governance describes a situation in which a differentiated set of independent organizations collaborates in order to achieve an outcome that none of the organizations could achieve independently. Network governance (sometimes also referred to as collaborative governance, collaborative management or ecosystems) is used to deal with issues such as regional economic development, responses to an emerginginfectious disease treat, increasing the quality of life for people with non-congenital brain injuries, cyber security, obesity prevention, strengthening community-based tourism, increasing sport participation rates, etc. These examples might seem to differ a lot but they all have in common that they are the result of acollaborative effort of a highly differentiated set of actors. These efforts are not the result of classical market mechanism (the market seems not to pick up these kind of issues), they are not steered by classical hierarchical mechanism (there is an absence of authority and ownership) and they are more than a classical inter-organizational setting (of bilateral win-wins). Consequently, understanding the governance of these networked arrangements is not only interesting from a theoretical perspective but mainly also form a practical perspective. It is expected that more and more challenges will be of the kind requiring a network governance approach.In this course we will discuss the prevalence and the functioning of network governance on the basis ofconcrete examples.

- Have a demonstrated knowledge and understanding of the network governance phenomenon.

- Be able  to apply the knowledge to practical situations in which network governance applies or may orshould apply.

- Identify the causes of the functioning of situations of network governance.

- Be able to communicate about network governance as a way to get things done and alert to factors explaining their (non-)functioning.

- Studying reading materials

- Lectures

- Think-Pair-Share Questions

- Group discussions

- Individual and group presentations

- pre-class preparation and contribution to in-class discussions (20%)

- individual class persentation (critical review of an empirical study) (40%)

- group presentation (40%)
(your contribution to the group process will be evaluated by your peers and be taking into account for your grade on this part)