Aware of the signs of us leaving our ‘safe operating space’ on planet Earth, we need to better understand the complex relationships and interactions within and between diverse social-ecological systems and take action on local to global scales. With knowledge co-production as a promising approach for addressing sustainability challenges in inclusive and equitable ways, this Licentiate thesis sets out to contribute insights on how to design, facilitate, document, and evaluate knowledge co-production processes to understand how and why intentional designs lead to intended outcomes. 

A workshop series centered around water and landscape governance on Öland, Sweden, presents the empirical case study for Paper 1 and Paper 2. Using the conceptualization of systems, target, and operational knowledge as the guiding framework, Paper 1 demonstrates how local actors moved from exploring the multifunctionality of landscapes and understanding different values, preferences, and priorities, to developing four strategies for effectively accelerating and expanding efforts to adapt to climate change. It also outlines how the process of mobilizing, articulating, and connecting individually held systems, target, and operational knowledge nurtures collective action. Paper 2 presents competencies in sustainability as a useful expansion of systems, target, and operational knowledge, as they add an explicit focus on skills and attitudes needed to address sustainability challenges. In this paper, we provide a detailed account of how and why actors built and strengthened competencies in sustainability throughout the workshop series on Öland. We found that different discussion and interaction formats, active listening, and compassionate communication underpin the development of all competencies. In addition, we propose assessment as learning as a promising entry point for nurturing and tracing learning in knowledge co-production processes.

The findings presented in this Licentiate thesis render knowledge co-production processes impactful and successful when they support actors in articulating, mobilizing, and connecting their knowledge, making better and more creative use of existing knowledge, and building and strengthening necessary skills and attitudes to continue finding and fine-tuning workable solutions through learning by doing in practice. Through this work, I hope to provide guidance for other scholars, practitioners, and policymakers, who wish to engage with a variety of actors in addressing sustainability challenges in inclusive and equitable ways.