Process expertise in policy advice: Designing collaboration in collaboration

The paper addresses how researchers can and do contribute to tackling complex societal and environmental challenges (e.g., climate change, COVID-19) by advising policymakers on collaborative governance. It responds to a shift from speaking truth to power toward making sense together, expanding expectations of researchers’ roles at science-policy interfaces. The research question asks: What do researchers do (and how) when advising policymakers on collaboration processes, and what expertise underpins this practice? The study positions this advisory work as process expertise—distinct from domain-specific expertise—and argues that understanding and systematising it is important for designing inclusive, effective collaborative arrangements that co-produce knowledge and solutions.

The paper surveys debates on expertise, contrasting relational/constructivist views with realist accounts and examining expertise as individual property versus community construct. It highlights practice-oriented perspectives that treat expertise as applied, embodied in doing, and as an in-between space connecting arenas, incorporating tools, institutional arrangements, and tacit/explicit knowledge. It references interactional versus contributory expertise and motivations for developing interactional expertise (learners, challengers, collaborators, mediators/facilitators). The authors consolidate a pragmatic view (Garrett et al.) focusing on knowledge content, operational context, and utilisation process. They define process expertise as knowledge of process design (content) for planning collaborative arrangements with policymakers (context) by facilitating knowledge co-production (process). The literature on facilitation informs this definition, presenting facilitators as makers of collaboration who operate through skilled, often invisible labour at relational, pragmatic, and political levels: managing group dynamics and discourse, building interaction orders, fostering trust and perspective-taking, and structuring deliberation. The review also distinguishes frontstage participation (performative deliberation) from understudied backstage work where process design decisions (who participates, how, what outputs) shape collaborative governance.

The study uses a self-reflective case narrative of the IASS research team 'Co-Creation and Contemporary Policy Advice' (2017–2020), situated in a unique institutional context supportive of transformative and transformation research. It examines advisory practices co-designing, with policymakers and other actors, tailored strategies to involve wider publics in addressing complex challenges. Two exemplar activities: (1) advising a Berlin municipality on collaborative mobility transition strategies, including facilitating regular cross-actor meetings and co-producing pandemic-era mobility prototypes (e.g., temporary bike lanes, play streets) with citizen inclusion; (2) co-planning a sequence of municipal citizen councils with a mayor, public servants, political party representatives, and a citizen initiative, embedding outputs into political agendas and building administrative competencies. Data collection followed a formative accompanying research approach with phases: learning about (researcher self-reflection; three reflection rounds among authors; six semi-structured interviews with team members focusing on advisory exemplars), learning with (two-hour collective team reflection for group-level reflexivity and sense-making), and plans for a future learning for phase (beyond scope). Reflection-in-action was used to minimise distance between action and reflection; an external co-author added critical distance. Data analysis combined abductive reasoning and grounded theory: open coding of interviews, thematic categorisation, second-round coding integrating the collective reflection, and team roles to counter researcher projection. The analysis triangulated practice experience, new empirical data, and relevant literature.

The study presents five constitutive elements (arguments) of process expertise, illustrated with cases: 1) Guiding rationale: Researchers pursue both societal and research impacts by establishing new interaction orders at macro and micro levels. Societal examples include supporting Berlin’s mobility transition by co-designing collaborative processes that build collective meaning and implementation support, creating a Co-Creative Reflection and Dialogue Space at COP25 to improve interaction culture, and enabling municipal citizen councils to refine democratic practice. Research-wise, participating in the backstage affords access to dynamics, actors, and networks, fostering mutual learning and practice-informed scholarship. 2) Two operational levels: relational and processual. Relational work creates conditions for collaboration—building channels and legitimacy, forming diverse steering groups (e.g., project groups with mayors, civil servants, parties, and citizen initiatives), fostering trust and reciprocity, and using frontstage events to connect actors and seed backstage collaboration (e.g., Lusatia coal phase-out workshop interventions). Micro-level relational practices (e.g., inviting personal motivations) shift defensive stances to openness; embodying new interaction orders can attract participation. Processual work structures and supervises co-production: advising on process, providing a mental map (who to engage, on what, how, and why), maintaining learning loops to align with purpose, alternating divergence/convergence, translating discussions into prototypes, plans, and responsibilities, and supervising implementation (e.g., sustained support to public servants running citizen councils). 3) Skills and collective practice: Process expertise is cultivated individually and collectively. Individually, interdisciplinary training (social sciences, physics) supports systematic listening, analytical framing, and anticipating conflict points; prior advocacy/policy experience aids contextual understanding; facilitation toolkits (Art of Hosting, Design Thinking, Dynamic Facilitation, Process Work, Deep Democracy), collaborative leadership, and agile project management enable practical design and iteration; dispositional attributes (respect, invitational communication) and a design mindset (thinking in prototypes) are crucial. Collectively, team practice is a precondition: ritualised weekly and mid-week meetings for strategy, challenge-sharing, joint design, and reflection; agile and strengths-focused approaches balance effectiveness and relationships, stimulate proactivity, and build trust. Team-based reflection fosters courage and risk-taking needed in volatile policy contexts and mitigates academic risks. 4) In-between spaces and phase zero: Process expertise unfolds in weakly institutionalised in-between spaces between research and policymaking. Access arises via windows of opportunity (pre-existing trust, citizen-initiated requests, proactive integration into research strategies). A deliberate exploratory 'phase zero' facilitates mutual enquiry: reframing problems, mapping resources, clarifying roles, aligning motivations, and identifying collaborative advantage. Researchers influence the dialogic setting from the outset, enabling policymakers to explore complex problem spaces. Academic independence allows negotiating scope beyond client-set briefs, supporting co-creative intent even with differing success criteria. 5) Assemblage and enabling conditions: Researchers exercise process expertise through an assemblage supported by academic status and cognitive authority, which confers perceived neutrality and catalytic power to convene voices and legitimise backstage access. Financial independence from policymaking clients enables openness and reduces co-optation risks. Long-term immersion and access to diverse knowledge legitimise asking difficult questions and contribute societal value. These privileges entail duties and awareness of power dynamics. Overall, process expertise maintains momentum in collaborative partnerships by continually weaving relational and processual work.

The findings address the research question by detailing what researchers do when advising on collaboration and the expertise they mobilise. Process expertise extends beyond individual competencies toward a practice-based, relationally and procedurally embedded capability that generates and sustains an in-between operational context for co-production. It complements an epistemology of possession (knowledge of process design) with an epistemology of practice (situated, negotiated, social accomplishment). By establishing interaction orders early (phase zero) and structuring co-production, process experts enable tangible outputs (e.g., mobility prototypes, collaborative strategies), actor engagement, and durable ties. These spaces are valuable yet fragile and time-intensive; maintaining them requires ongoing relational cultivation and process supervision. Team-based reflection and supportive institutional conditions (mandate for transformative research, longer-term funding, recognition of soft skills) bolster courage, mitigate risks, and balance societal and scholarly outcomes. Conceptually, the study refines process expertise as a distinct, pragmatic form of expertise at science-policy interfaces, highlighting its assemblage nature and its role in sustaining collaborative governance.

The paper provides language and structure for the often invisible work of researchers advising policymakers on how to design collaboration in collaboration. Process expertise comprises learnable, transferrable skills and dispositions—augmented by diverse experiences across sectors—and is accelerated by collective team practice. The study suggests building shared knowledge banks and practice-based networks for guest participation and peer learning across advisory teams. Beyond invited spaces, process expertise can support contested contexts by helping establish legitimate collaborative processes among diverse actors, including citizen groups. Continued structured reflection and development of process expertise are necessary for science to fulfil its transformative mandate responsibly. The proposed elements are offered as an invitation for further theoretical refinement and practical support to researchers navigating collaboration.

The self-reflective case narrative risks limited critical distance and potential bias, mitigated only partly by reflection-in-action, external co-authorship, and team-based sense-making. Findings are context-specific to a single research team and institutional setting, limiting generalisability. The weakly institutionalised in-between spaces are volatile; changes in personnel or political support can disrupt collaboration. The work is time-intensive and may strain balance between advisory and academic outputs, involving risk and uncertainty. Future research should include perspectives from policymakers and other actors, comparative studies of similar teams, and assessment of the impacts of co-designed collaborative arrangements.