About the Centre
The Centre on Governance’s logo is the visual representation of what it defines as governance: effective mechanisms of coordination in situations where power, resources and information are widely distributed. The multiplicity of actors is visualized as three intersecting circles: the public sector, the private sector and the community sector. The intersections of these circles – and particularly the middle section where all three of the circles intersect – are the areas of prime importance of governance, where the three sectors work together, attracted by the synergy.
The logo represents both the reality of modern societies – multiplicity of actors and ever increasingly complex linkages between the sectors – and also the principal goal and direction as the Centre on Governance. Therefore, we believe in decompartmentalizing the three sectors (and all the sectors within each of the three sectors), multiplying the links between them and helping the actors to think of effective coordination mechanisms.
Some researchers associated to the centre work more on the public sector, others more on the private sector and still others more on the community sector. But all agree that the question of how the sectors work together is an absolutely central issue for our societies.
Within the very broad theme of governance, the Centre on Governance has specific orientations. They are:
- Place-based governance and coordination mechanisms and governance issues that are defined in geographically specific spaces – cities, communities, regions. This orientation implies an interest in the territorialization of governance.
- Rapidly increasing diversity of our societies and the potential of governance, and the concrete mechanisms of governance, to offer fertile ground for experimenting ways of crating (spaces, communities, institutions) of inclusion.
- A locally driven perspective that looks at how other levels of public, private and community action can work in a way that builds and augments local capacity.