Table 1 Levels of navigating power dynamics in knowledge co-production processes
From: City residents, scientists and policy-makers: power in co-producing knowledge
Levels | Forms of interaction | Purpose of interaction | Roles of stakeholders | Guiding questions for discerning power dynamics |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Level 1: Science for policy and local communities | Single one-way interaction | “informing”: relevant information from study results are communicated from one side to the other (science to city residents and / or science to policy) | Scientists are the producers and disseminators of knowledge Policy-makers and city residents are the targeted end-users of knowledge | What platforms, content, messaging, and language have you used to make the findings from this project accessible by non-academic actors (municipal officials, national government agencies, international partners/donors)? |
Multiple one-way interactions | “Informing across sectors and scales”: Scientists exchange relevant information from studies with policy-makers and city residents at municipal, national, regional and global scale, and the policy-makers and city residents are drawn from different sectors such as health, transport, housing and energy. | Did the activities and discussions around the project involve inviting municipal officials, central government agencies and city residents to take part? If not, why? If yes, how? | ||
Level 2: Science with policy and local communities | Collaborative Research | “Co-framing research agendas and Co-designing methodologies”: scientists from different disciplines work with city residents and policy-makers across sectors and scales, to define the research problem and methodology, and go ahead to work hand in hand to generate and disseminate the results. | Scientists, policy-makers and city residents are co-producers, co-disseminators and co-end users of knowledge | ▪ Were there groups of people (academic and non-academic) who influenced the process more than others? Why do you think this happened? ▪ Were there groups of people who took part but had very little influence? Why do you think this happened? ▪ Based on the objectives of the project, were any groups of people left out from the co-production process who should have been there? Why do you think this happened? ▪ Were all perspectives, ideas and knowledge offerings integrated equally into the co-production process? ▪ Do you think there were any rules (formal or informal) that supported one group being heard over another? ▪ Is there anything else related to how groups of people participated in the co-production process that you think is important to discuss? |
Joint decision making and implementation of projects using boundary objects | “Co-experimentation and joint action for change”: scientists from different disciplines not only undertake research with city residents and policy-makers across sectors and scales, but also jointly create, test or take to scale solutions with the aim of bringing about transformative change in society. |