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Co-creation

Bridge the gap between research and practice. Academic collaborations with practitioners can result in better research and real impact.

These NBS resources show how business leaders and academics can learn from each other and co-create knowledge for a sustainable future.

Winners of the 2023 ONE-SIM Outreach Award for sustainability research make the case for going deep as well as broad. Communities matter, not just clicks.

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For researchers to offer practical advice for managers, we need to change the way we research. We suggest a new approach.

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Researchers often think they need to remove abstraction when they translate research for managers. That’s not true.

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Two trailblazers in research impact joined 140 early career management scholars to discuss how academic research can help society.

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How does sustainability research get implemented by practitioners? New initiatives trace the journey.

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Cocreation is an answer, say Tima Bansal and Garima Sharma. They discuss their research journey and their conclusions, now in press at AMJ.

The Impact Challenge

Intractable sustainability issues require problem solvers to come together. Practitioners and researchers can bring complementary insights to co-create knowledge for sustainability impact. However, often researchers see impact as a translation problem: findings need to be translated into language managers can understand and disseminated effectively.

But translation only goes so far in creating real change. What if impact is reframed as a knowledge production problem?[1] Then, the focus shifts from how researchers provide managers with the right answer to how to integrate academic and practitioner knowledge for unique insights.

Despite its promise, knowledge co-creation with practitioners is neither easy nor incentivized.

NBS's Co-Creation Initiative

NBS seeks to help researchers navigate the path of co-creation with practitioners — by learning from each other and sharing challenges and advice.

We want to build resources that offer insights to researchers on key questions such as:

  • How do I do collaborative research (e.g., engaged scholarship, insider-outsider research) and how do I do it well?

  • How do I publish such research in top journals?

  • How do I manage my researcher identity in academic circles that may not value such collaborative work?

We also want to build a community of researchers who share their experiences and offer insights to each other.

Get Involved

Subscriber to our academic newsletter, the Researcher Update, to receive the latest co-creation guidance.

We also hope you’ll contribute your own co-creation insights. Please share your interest by emailing Garima Sharma.

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