Researcher roles in collaborative governance interventions

While societies are facing complex problems involving multiple stakeholders and interdependencies, interest in collaborative governance as a potential solution is rising. Research-based interventions in policy, planning, and management processes have been introduced to test different approaches and tools for collaboration. The nature of these processes, tools, and approaches varies substantially, as do researchers’ cultures of making contributions to and in collaboration with society. This paper outlines the various possibilities and means for researchers to intervene in and explore steps towards collaborative governance. It utilises literature-based descriptions of potential roles for researchers and draws on insight from Finnish collaborative governance interventions in environmental decision-making. The conventional role of researchers as providers of knowledge was complemented with roles needed to foster favourable conditions for collaboration. Tensions regarding these roles show that collaborative governance requires a reflexive position from researchers, enabling them to adapt their ideas about collaboration to specific governance settings.