Infrastructure projects can act as niches for innovation development, contribute to strategic goals of network owners, and drive broader systemic transitions. However, limited research has examined how sustainability transitions are shaped through narratives and counternarratives around infrastructure projects. Using a case study of the port of Rotterdam, we analyze how three embedded projects - Maasvlakte 2, RDM Campus, and the Hydrogen Pipeline - reflected and shaped evolving narratives and counter-narratives over 20-years. Grounded in the Multi-Level Perspective (MLP), the study demonstrates how an infrastructure owner like the Port of Rotterdam Authority (PoRA) strategically mobilized narrative framing to reshape existing regimes over time. The study contributes to the debate on project management and transition studies by highlighting how infrastructure project owners respond to transition-related tensions by shaping, defending, and adapting project narratives over time, thereby influencing sustainability trajectories.

Learning has been put forward as a critical aspect to achieve sustainable transformation of societal systems. However, there is a lack of a systematic review of empirical evidence on how learning is related to sustainability transitions. To bridge this gap, we systematically reviewed 113 empirical papers that addressed the role of learning in transitions. Our results show that the complexity of the relationship between learning and transitions is not deeply analysed and that there is a need to distinguish more precisely between learning processes and learning outcomes. Further, there is a need to shift the focus towards analysing regime-level learning to increase our understanding of how learning contributes to system transformation. Finally, networks, trust, disagreement, and power are key aspects related to learning that will require further examination, especially in terms of how they play out dynamically in learning for sustainability transitions.