Science is We: towards co-equal power sharing in scientific knowledge production

Co-created and participatory science has been recognized within the research community as a means to further applied science, improve uptake of research findings, and enhance the scientific community's ability to respond to urgent socioenvironmental challenges like climate change. However, many of these participatory methods are still limited by the Western science community's traditional notions of "knowledge production" and "original research". What is frequently neglected are options that seek collaboration beyond that research process or involve the production of knowledge that is, by the research community's standards, not publishable. Based on our experiences as scientists and practitioners in the ecological sciences and conservation, both within and beyond academia, we present examples of co-creation and applied science processes with and within local and Indigenous communities, utility companies, finance and investment professionals, and policy makers to illustrate the need for and potential impact of work that pushes the boundaries of what is frequently considered by researchers as "science." Many traditional examples of science co-creation involve the insertion of public or community input at one or more points within a standard research process (e.g. community consultation to identify research questions, citizen science to assist with data collection, or production of communications materials to disseminate findings). Even when attempted, longer-term, iterative processes of co-creation are often limited by grant timelines and publishing requirements that tend to work on the short-to-medium scale. We posit that the historic segregation of the academic sciences from "practical" work and the lived experiences of most people continues to limit our ability to produce effective, useful, and culturally responsive research and that to truly be co-creators requires a more fundamental shift towards co-equal power sharing within knowledge production endeavors. In this discussion, we aim to open a dialogue about how and under what circumstances the research community can broaden our understanding of science, incorporating other ways of knowing and moving past knowledge production as a primarily academic endeavor.