Co-production trajectories: rethinking impact formation in knowledge co-production
Sonja K Nielsen & Sampsa Hyysalo
What the paper says
Abstract Despite growing interest in knowledge co-production for environmental governance, questions remain about whether and how it creates societal impacts. A central challenge is attributing impacts to particular co-production arrangements. Existing literature tends to assume that co-production arrangements are the originators of impacts. However, this assumption obscures how societal outcomes actually form and makes their substantiation difficult. Using a trajectory-based approach from science and technology studies to study transition arenas, we show how co-production is primarily involved with change processes that are already underway before co-production begins and continue well after it ends. In this view, co-production primarily contributes to these outcomes rather than producing them. These contributions depend on the issues and actor ecologies involved. This processual approach offers a complementary and more nuanced lens to conventional evaluation models, helping policymakers set more realistic expectations and improve the design and integration of co-production into policy processes.
Evidence weight
Balanced mode · F 0.40 / M 0.15 / V 0.05 / R 0.40
| F · citation impact | 0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20 |
| M · momentum | 0.50 × 0.15 = 0.07 |
| V · venue signal | 0.50 × 0.05 = 0.03 |
| R · text relevance † | 0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20 |
† Text relevance is estimated at 0.50 on the detail page — for your query’s actual relevance score, open this paper from a search result.