Who shapes directionality in Mission-oriented innovation systems? The role of formal networks in the French protein transition

This thesis explores how directions of change towards sustainability are constructed across different levels and contexts, placing a particular focus on bottom-up directionality built within formal networks of actors. It investigates the protein transition in France, analyzing how formal networks interpret challenges, build priorities and collective directions for legume value chains. To do so, the thesis draws on a Mission-oriented Innovation Systems approach, starting from the premise that, in a context where policy provides partial directionality, formal networks contribute to shaping the direction of system change. In practice, this involves influencing the functioning of the system. Innovation system functions are hence mobilized as an analytical framework to characterize directions of change emerging in networks, allowing to reveal perceived problems, desirable system changes and the role of networks in contributing to them. The analysis combines in-depth case studies of two leading legume networks in France with a national survey gathering more than 200 responses. The case studies highlight the roles that actors expect networks to play in orienting different system functions, while the national survey assesses how such expectations are shared across a wider diversity of collective initiatives. Together, these analyses allow the characterization of directions emerging from a broad range of networks, the perceived role of networks in bringing them about, and how this may vary across places and actor configurations. The thesis thus explores how directionality can be understood, and potentially governed, as a distributed process, shaped by policy orientations as well as emergent, context-specific collective dynamics.