Abstract: Urban innomediaries (UI) are orchestrating the collaborative urban innovation transition. In Europe, they aim 1) to support public organisations in their environmental and digital transitions, 2) to orchestrate the market of urban innovation and 3) to foster collaboration between public-private-third-academia-civil actors. In order to study their systemic functions and their governance and management practices, seven European organisations were analysed (four main cases and three partial cases) using a combination qualitative and quantitative questionnaire, interviews, ethnographic and autoetnographic methods. The cases were selected for their reputation as a leader in their network and to maximise the heterogeneity of the cases. Preliminary results propose six dominant management models: the activist, the agile start-up, the territorial strategist, the representative and coach, the national model and the urban labs. In terms of organisational culture and climate, UI are perceived by their employees as a dynamic and playful working environment where they work hard on stimulating projects often without receiving a fair compensation for their work. By reducing its financial dependency on the public sector, the one has demonstrated that scaling up is not always the most viable option in order to diversify funding. Moreover, results show that UI have designed and implemented different types of management practices that combines bottom-up and top-down dynamics in order to adapt to an ever-changing environment. Finally, the research recognises the importance for UI to improve their capabilities regarding organisational learning, impact assessment and knowledge and competences management.