Co-development and retooling as new roles for applied research

Knowledge creation dynamics is in transition in modern informationloaded society. We need to see a researcher’s role in a new way: not only as a constructor of scientific facts but as a co-developer of practical tools. We analyse how co-development occurs between researchers and practitioners as a learning process in the context of a multi-actor application-orientated project. The co-development of a practical tool for supporting co-innovation in the public sector was organised as a learning journey. The chapter explicates the researchers’ various methods for enhancing learning between actors and between practice contexts. The co-development unfolds as a temporary, fragile path through different artefacts in a knowledge creation process guided by the researchers. It may also be characterised as an interplay between local practice-specific and generalised knowledge, which enables retooling practitioners for their future.