Building a Shared Understanding of the Knowledge Co-production Process Across the Sea Grant Network
Erin SatterthwaiteOglethorpe A/B
Addressing complex sustainability challenges requires innovative approaches. One such approach is the process of knowledge co-production, where individuals with diverse expertise collaborate to build shared understanding in support of transformative solutions. As part of the Sea Grant Special Issue in the journal Oceanography, a team of Sea Grant and other natural/social scientists and practitioners developed a knowledge co-production framework for conceptualizing their work, drawing from literature and professional experience. The next step in the co-design process is to bring together interested Sea Grant practitioners to further refine and adapt this concept. This interactive session will be dedicated to exploring, sharing, and refining the concept of knowledge co-production and the terminology we use. The discussion will cover the diversity of work across the Sea Grant network, including efforts by Extension agents/specialists, research coordinators, researchers, communicators, educators, and other professionals. The session will include a brief overview of the knowledge co-production process, an individual activity to apply the framework to personal experiences, and an interactive activity and discussion to explore the strengths of and possible improvements to the framework. The goal of this session is to build a shared understanding of the process by which we conduct our work within Sea Grant and develop common language used to describe the process. The outputs of the workshop will be shared with the Sea Grant network in a white paper, focused on the conceptualized process Sea Grant uses when conducting place-based, solution-focused work.