Strategic Research Programme on Informational Governance

Informational Governance for Sustainability focuses on governing by information and the role of information in governance. At the crossroad of two major developments – the emerging Information Age and shifts in modes of governance – a new phenomenon has been identified and experimented upon recently: informational governance.

The concept of informational governance is new and refers to the idea that information (and informational processes, technologies, institutions and resources linked to it) is fundamentally restructuring processes, institutions and practices of governance, making them essentially different from conventional modes of governance. Where conventional governance highly relies on authoritative resources, belief in information control, and state power, in informational governance information is becoming a crucial (re)source with transformative powers for a variety of actors, although nobody is in control of information.

The programme aims to position Wageningen UR as a leading innovative centre in informational governance research.

At the Public Administration and Policy group, Prof. Katrien Termeer is involved as programme leader of the Informational Governance programme, Dr. Katrine Soma works as a postdoc researcher for the programme, and Dr. Art Dewulf is involved in the ECOMPRIS project and the PhD project on Social media as the new playing field for the governance of sustainable agro-food systems.

More information can be found at http://www.wur.nl/en/About-Wageningen-UR/Strategic-plan/Informational-Governance.htm