Navigating Co-Creation Processes to Build Sustainable Agroecological Systems

Transformative Innovation Policies in the agricultural sector (Agroecology Partnership, ACROPICS (https://acp-initiative.com/fr/acropics/) increasingly support Living Labs (LL) to foster agroecological transition. LLs are place-based, real-world experimentations in which actors of the quadruple helix are involved in participatory co-creation processes, to generate innovative solutions. While the literature recognizes the transformative potential of co-creation processes in LLs, few papers explain the “transformative” pathways and the factors enabling systemic changes. We contend that to be transformative, the pathways should be anticipated by a network of actors involved in, and those beyond, the co-creation processes, aiming at developing sustainable agroecological systems (SAS). The aim of this paper is to highlight that embedding real-time monitoring and futuring exercises in LLs’ co-creation processes enables actors to uncover relevant pathways: expected transformations, aligned alternative solutions and a set of leverage points enabling to accelerate the circulation and generalization of the co-created solutions and thus agroecological transition.