Governing the trade-off between the co-production of actionable knowledge and academic publishing in transdisciplinary sustainability research.
(2026) Environmental Science & Policy — Vol. 176, n° 104318, p. 13 (2026)
Files
governingtrade-off2026.pdf
Open Access - Adobe PDF
- 731.97 KB
Details
- Authors
- et. al.
- Abstract
- Despite their stated ambitions, the societal outputs of many transdisciplinary sustainability research projects remain at the level of research dissemination to policy makers and concerned stakeholders, rather than organizing a truly interactive knowledge co-production process. In addition, projects that organize interactive knowledge co-production often achieve either a high level of actionable knowledge outputs for the key societal stakeholders or a high level of publication outputs for the scientific community. This paper analyses this trade-off in more detail based on the survey results from a unique sample of 50 completed EU research projects that fall under the same funding requirement to combine societal impact and scientific excellence in so-called "Research and Innovation Actions". The results confirm the difficulty for many projects to achieve both goals. In fact, the results show that only about half (54 %) of the projects produced actionable knowledge outputs at the end of the project, and only 34 % achieved both a high level of actionable knowledge outputs and a high level of peer-reviewed articles. The analysis of the survey results shows that co-design of research tasks related to field work, such as social science data collection or technical experimentation in real-world environments, contributes to actionable knowledge, but also potentially leads to fewer publications. An important exception to this finding is the case of intermediate levels of field research co-design. In this case, the strengthening of relational and reflective-normative trust between scientific researchers and social actors contributes to both actionable knowledge outputs and academic publications.
- Affiliations
Citations
Dedeurwaerdere, T., & et al. (2026). Governing the trade-off between the co-production of actionable knowledge and academic publishing in transdisciplinary sustainability research. Environmental Science & Policy, 176(104318), 13. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2026.104318 (Original work published 2026)