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Addressing the challenges of wildland fire requires that fire science be relevant to management and integrated into management decisions. Co-production is often touted as a process that can increase the utility of science for management, by involving scientists and managers in knowledge creation and problem solving. Despite the documented benefits of co-production, these efforts face a number of institutional barriers. Further research is needed on how to institutionalise support and incentivise co-production. To better understand how research organisations enable and constrain co-production, this study examined seven co-produced wildland fire projects associated with the US Department of Agriculture Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station (RMRS), through in-depth interviews with scientists, managers and community members. Results provide insights into how organisational structures and cultures influence the co-production of fire science. Research organisations like RMRS may be able to institutionalise co-production by adjusting the way they incentivise and evaluate researchers, increasing investment in science delivery and scientific personnel overall, and supplying long-term funding to support time-intensive collaborations. These sorts of structural changes could help transform the culture of fire science so that co-production is valued alongside more conventional scientific activities and products. 

Co-production has become a cornerstone of research within the sustainability sciences, motivating collaborations of diverse actors to conduct research in the service of societal and policy change. This review examines theoretical and empirical literature from sustainability science, public administration, and science and technology studies (STS) with the intention of advancing the theory and practice of co-production within sustainability science. We argue that co-production must go beyond stakeholder engagement by scientists to the more deliberate design of societal transitions. Co-production can contribute to such transitions by shifting the institutional arrangements that govern relationships between knowledge and power, science and society, and state and citizens. We highlight critical weaknesses in conceptualizations of co-production within sustainability sciences with respect to power, politics, and governance. We offer suggestions for how this can be rectified through deeper engagement with public administration and STS to offer a broad vision for enhancing the use, design, and practice of a more reflexive co-production in sustainability science. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Environment and Resources Volume 44 is October 17, 2019. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.