Knowledge co-production for climate change transformation: Panacea or placebo? (COPP)

The project is coordinated by The Western Norway Research Institute, with senior researcher Halvor Dannevig as project manager. Partners are Centre for the Study of the Sciences and the Humanities (SVT) at the University of Bergen, CICERO Centre for International Climate Research, Nordland Research Institute, Vestland county municipality, Rogaland county municipalitiy and SABIMA.

There is a push for participatory research in the transformation literature, and science funders increasingly require stakeholder participation in research for climate action, driven by an assumption that this leads to higher social impact. While co-production brings numerous benefits to the scientific process—such as legitimacy and insights that would otherwise not be accessible—the implications of institutionalizing co-production as a formal requirement in climate research has been little explored.

COPP will select and analyse cases consisting of co-production projects situated in Norway’s research system, including cases with indigenous participants, with a focus on how the co-production imperative influences the practices in each project while contributing to shifts in rules, norms and culture within this system. This perspective is further enriched with a longitudinal study of how the co-production has evolved in the national system over time. The project will develop and test a conceptual framework for assessing the outcomes and impact of co-producing climate knowledge. This framework will also be translated into best-practice guidelines and a training program for developing impactful research programs.

The project will advance our understanding of how and under what conditions knowledge co-production can help deliver transformative outcomes and impact, as well as identifying unintended and unwanted outcomes of coproduction. The project will contribute to a transformative climate research agenda and support societal action for transformative adaptation and mitigation.

SVT's role

The project relates to the SVT's research activities on the role of science in society, and extended modes of conducting research with society. This includes a strand into how science can be impactful and contribtue to climate change transformation.  

At the SVT, Research Professor Scott Bremer is working on the project. He leads the work package (WP4): Re-conceptualizing impact in co-produced climate science, and he also participates in the following WPs: 

WP1 Project management and communication

WP 2 The emergence of co-production as a strategy in research policy

WP 3: Co-production in practice – conditions and factors that influences outcomes and impacts