The dynamics of networks of interacting systems depend intricately on the interaction topology. Dynamical implications of local topological properties such as the nodes' degrees and global topological properties such as the degree distribution have intensively been studied. Mesoscale properties, by contrast, have only recently come into the sharp focus of network science but have
rapidly developed into one of the hot topics in the field. Current questions are: can considering a mesoscale structure such as a single subgraph already allow conclusions on dynamical properties of the network as a whole? And: Can we extract implications that are independent of the embedding network? In this talk I will show that certain mesoscale subgraphs have precise and distinct
consequences for the system-level dynamics. In particular, they induce characteristic dynamical instabilities that are independent of the structure of the embedding network.