Why Do We Need Science-Based Co-Creation?

For many years the transfer, exchange and collaboration of knowledge and technology between academia and industry have been discussed as an important means of generating commercial value. The underlying rationale for such collaborations is that knowledge and technology from academia lead to firms’ competitive advantage. What has received less attention in the literature, so far, is a science-based collaborative approach for addressing societal challenges. In particular, we focus on collaborations among different actors - ranging from academics, businesses, policy makers, intermediaries and society - who devote shared resources, competences and capabilities in developing unique solutions to economic and societal challenges. The specific domain of a such process - that demands thinking beyond the knowledge transfer or creation expected to produce business value - is framed as “co-creation”. This paper outlines a conceptual framework by capturing the heterogeneity of science-based co-creation and its determinants. In the paper, the concept of co-creation is positioned in the various strands of innovation literature which refer to collaboration across different domains, highlighting the uniqueness of co-creation. We suggest focussing on a distinctive character of co-creation: the production of both business value and social values that emerges with different forms of innovation, reach and prominence. While business value has its own metric in a monetary scale, when society is considered, metrics should refer to the many different dimensions that have been impacted on, leading to many social values (in plural). The paper highlights research gaps to further our knowledge on co-creation and suggests policy implications to support effective mutual interactions across science, technology and society