Knowledge Co-production at the Research–Practice Interface: Embedded Case Studies from Urban Forestry

Abstract

Cities are increasingly engaging in sustainability efforts and investment in green infrastructure, including large-scale urban tree planting campaigns. In this context, researchers and practitioners are working jointly to develop applicable knowledge for planning and managing the urban forest. This paper presents three case studies of knowledge co-production in the field of urban forestry in the United States. These cases were selected to span a range of geographic scales and topical scopes; all three are examples of urban researcher-practitioner networks in which the authors are situated to comment on reflexively. The three cases resemble institutional structures described in the knowledge co-production literature, including participatory research, a hybrid organization of scientists and managers, and a community of practice. We find that trust, embeddedness, new approaches by both practitioners and researchers, and blending of roles all serve to recognize multiple forms of capability, expertise, and ways of knowing. We discuss the impacts of knowledge co-production and the ways in which hybrid institutional forms can enable its occurrence.

The art of co-production of knowledge in environmental sciences and management: lessons from international practice

“…Cvitanovic et al (2016) and Campbell et al (2016) each were challenged to reconcile different institutional cultures. Cvitanovic et al (2016) reported that the efforts and amount of time the researchers in their case study needed to devote to academic outputs and fund raising seemed to reduce the amount of time they had available to properly engage managers and communicate their research findings.…”

“…In addition, the limited planning time that managers usually face, because of their day-to-day responsibilities, prevented them from "staying abreast of the science," and contributing to generating new knowledge. Campbell et al (2016Campbell et al ( : 1275 point to the need for managers to have "patience to work with researchers, who often operate at slower pace than the customary management timeline. " Campbell et al (2016) also note that, in one case, building into the project informal "hanging out" opportunities for researchers and managers translated into greater recognition and understanding between the two groups.…”

Recognizing Stewardship Practices as Indicators of Social Resilience: In Living Memorials and in a Community Garden

“…In so doing, we build upon traditions of reflexive research that are used in ethnographic methods from human geography and anthropology [61,62]. Comparative case study methodology is appropriate when detailed investigation of phenomena is used to build upon existing theory, moving from the "micro from the macro" [63] (p. 5) [64][65][66]. As such, we selected these cases as windows into processes of social resilience in the context of urban, community-based stewardship after disturbance.…”

How Cities Think: Knowledge Co-Production for Urban Sustainability and Resilience

“…Examples of these conventional models include the loading dock model, where science is transferred to the policy 'dock' through a one-way loading truck, or the bridge model, wherein academia and policy engage in a two-way interaction by building bridges between the two [17]. By giving a new look into how science-policy interfaces are organized, the literature is moving away from looking at the relationship between science and society as a one-or two-way interaction to more of a complex relationship in terms of multiple actors and knowledges, multiple interactions, and multiple mechanisms (see for instance [10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][24][25][26]). …”