Why getting people in the same room isn’t enough – Organizational proximity and learning in public transport innovation

Mats Fred, Dalia Mukhtar-Landgren, Lina Berglund-Snodgrass and Alexander Paulsson. In: Experimentation for sustainable transport? Risks, strengths and governance implications (pp. 59).

This chapter focuses on the governance and management of innovation processes. The authors note that innovation processes are often collaborative endeavours with a multitude of actors, expertise, ideas, and wills involved, and they discuss different types of proximities that are understood to support learning and innovation. There is a common tendency to emphasise physical proximity in processes of innovation, but other types of proximities such as cognitive, institutional, or social proximity (or distances) are also important. A key conclusion from the chapter is the need for public actors to focus more on the why of innovation.