This editorial sets the scene for a special issue on climate governance entrepreneurship at the local and regional levels. To make climate governance work, much policy activity is needed at the local and regional levels. Entrepreneurs are actors who aim to affect change by using their agency. They target policy decisions at the local and regional levels, which might subsequently turn to other governance levels to expand their influence. The scientific discussion about governance entrepreneurs is characterized by a lack of conceptual clarity, by methodological challenges, and by several research gaps. Regarding the latter, at present, it is especially unclear when and why entrepreneurs become active, which factors they take into account when they select their strategies, and what explains the effects of entrepreneurial activity on the emergence of innovations in climate governance. All contributions to this special issue engage with one or several of these conceptual, methodological, and empirical challenges, thus advancing the state of art in the field. Highlights from the special issue include the development of a simple conceptual frame that connects actors, contexts, strategies, and outcomes in a systematic way. Some promising methodological avenues are described, since the special issue contains not only some qualitative case studies but also some studies that take a long-term perspective by following policy development for decades, and a study that proposes a census approach. Empirically, the contributions in this special issue shed light on a range of factors explaining levels of entrepreneurial activity, and they carefully trace impacts over time. We conclude by sketching an agenda for further work in this realm.

中文翻译：

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地方和区域层面气候治理的创业精神：概念、方法、模式和效果。

这篇社论为地方和区域层面的气候治理创业特刊奠定了基础。为了使气候治理发挥作用，地方和区域层面需要开展大量政策活动。企业家是旨在利用其代理影响变革的行动者。他们以地方和区域层面的政策决策为目标，随后可能转向其他治理层面以扩大其影响力。关于治理企业家的科学讨论的特点是缺乏概念清晰度、方法论挑战和一些研究空白。对于后者，目前尤其不清楚企业家何时、为何变得活跃，他们在选择战略时考虑了哪些因素，以及如何解释企业家活动对气候治理创新出现的影响。本期特刊的所有贡献都涉及这些概念、方法论和实证挑战中的一个或几个，从而推进了该领域的最新技术。该特刊的亮点包括开发一个简单的概念框架，以系统的方式连接参与者、背景、战略和结果。描述了一些有前途的方法论途径，因为特刊不仅包含一些定性案例研究，还包含一些通过跟踪数十年政策发展的长期视角的研究，以及提出人口普查方法的研究。从经验上看，本期特刊的贡献揭示了解释创业活动水平的一系列因素，并仔细追踪了一段时间内的影响。最后，我们勾勒出该领域进一步工作的议程。