This project addresses a key gap in the governance of transitions to more sustainable cities, namely the need for effective, socially inclusive arenas in which multi-sectoral and multi-stakeholder partners can learn from each other and develop joint solutions. This includes the need to go beyond triple helix of government, industry, and academia and acknowledge the key role that civil society actors have, by introducing a quadruple helix structure.

Both in practice and in the academic literature, rather little is known about how to develop, implement, and evaluate quadruple helix partnerships in a way that results in long-term changes at all levels: individual learning, organizational change, and overall sustainable system development.

To this end, we use the unique opportunity of the Swedish long-term strategic innovation program Viable Cities to study the role of transition initiatives as catalyst for quadruple helix collaborations using the case of urban mobility transitions:

Objectives of the project:

1. Understand the governance challenges related to quadruple helix interaction processes, using urban mobility transitions as a case study.
2. Implement innovative participatory methods that support the dynamic capabilities of quadruple helix stakeholders.
3. Evaluate the extent to which these participatory processes and methods help address individual, organizational, and system changes.
4. Derive and communicate implications for related initiatives to catalyze quadruple helix partnerships.