Unexpected drivers such as the swings in global food prices and the consequences of economic recession, as well as foreseeable ones such as demographic developments or migration call for new modes of governance for various economic and social transactions. Modes of governance are contracts, networks, bureaucracy, cooperation or markets, in other words the organisational solutions for making institutions effective and guaranteeing rights and duties.

New modes of governance refer not only to the process of policy formulation (requirements for impact assessments and integrated modelling) and to the design of policies (decentralization, bottom-up initiatives), but also to the coordination of agricultural input and output markets (energy, credit, labour, food, fibre, landscape). In this respect, the management of natural resources such as land, water, biodiversity plays a crucial role. Moreover, challenges of social safety systems in rural areas require particular innovative governance structures. Last but not least, new modes of governance call for further development of theoretical concepts and methods in analysing institutional changes and their outcomes.