Co-production trajectories: rethinking impact formation in knowledge co-production

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.