Can science on transformation transform science? Lessons from co-design

Increasingly, 'co-design' is a key concept and approach in global change and sustainability research, in the scholarship on science-policy interactions, and an expressed expectation in research programs and initiatives. This paper situates co-design and then synthesizes insights from real-life experiences of co-developing research projects in this Special Issue. It highlights common co-design elements (parameters and considerations of co-design and purpose-driven engagement activities); discusses challenges experienced in co-design and then emphasizes a range of rarely articulated benefits of co-design for both researchers, societal partners and the work they aim to do together. The paper summarizes some of the knowledge gains on social transformation to sustainability from the co-design phase and concludes that co-design as a process is an agent of transformation itself.