Matching societal knowledge demand, research funding and scientific knowledge supply: trends and co-creation dynamics around reindeer management in Finland

ABSTRACT Matching knowledge Demand, research Funding and knowledge Supply (DFS) is important in order to enhance societally and policy relevant research, target funding appropriately and enhance the connectivity between science, policy and society. The DFS field around reindeer management in Finland offers a fertile case study to examine interconnected and complex trends as well as the relations between herders’ and policymakers’ knowledge demand, ministerial funding and independent supply of knowledge by science. We identify matches and mismatches between the DFS in a case study of reindeer management in Finland across ten inductively identified themes and in time scales of 2000–2009 and 2010–2018. The main finding was that, during the latter period, the DFS matched significantly better than in the earlier period. In order to explain this, we identify and discuss five alternative and legitimate co-creation dynamics that explain how the DFS is organizing around the reindeer management in Finland. The five dynamics represent variations in the co-creation approach, fit to varying situations, which can inform of alternative ways to better match the DFS around reindeer management, and they are also applicable in other contexts.