International audienceThis article is based on an experimental participation in one of the research conducted by the European Spatial Planning Observatory Network (ESPON) program on the governance of territorial and urban policies from European Union level to local level. The authors intend to demonstrate the prescriptive nature of the use of the concept of governance within the research program. They conclude that the issue of mobilizing this concept lies in the political willingness of Europeanization of spatial planning. However, the results of the research, because of the normative use of governance, question about the nature of the obtained results. Consequently, the authors make a proposal on what could be a use of the governance as a...