The argument of this article is that academic, research-based knowledge and
practitioner, experience-based knowledge are initially bridged when these meet,
that this bridging can develop into a process of knowledge co-generation under
certain circumstances (Greenwood & Levin, 2007), and when this happens, new
knowledge can create changes in a region. We therefore conceive an important
interplay between the dynamic relationship among researchers and agents from the
‘bottom up’ and the conditions for institutional change created by institutional
entrepreneurs from the ‘top down’. With a positive interplay, the co-generation
process can generate changes in behaviour, language used, work methods and the
creation of organisations. Related to such changes, we can define actionable
knowledge as knowledge used to generate changes by actors with an entrepreneurial attitude. It can be new knowledge for those involved in regional development,
but can also be new knowledge that is of interest for the academic community.