Ambitions for participation and collaboration, or co-creation, are increasingly central in discussions on how the world will achieve the goal of transitioning to a low-emission society. This is reflected in the climate and municipal plans of many Norwegian municipalities and their goals to collaborate with or facilitate collaboration with actors in the private, academic, and civil sectors. In this context, it is important to gain a better understanding of how such cross-sector collaborations work and how they impact social inclusion and justice – both in terms of justice and inclusion dimensions within the collaboration relationships themselves, and how collaboration with different actors influences what justice and inclusion dimensions are addressed in municipalities' climate work.
This is a doctoral project conducted by Iris Leikanger at the Center for Development and the Environment at the University of Oslo.
The project aims to study how collaborative relationships between actors within and outside municipal organisations contribute to municipalities' work on climate transition. The project specifically focuses on how roles and responsibilities are distributed among different actors in collaboration projects and how collaboration and co-creation influence which topics become central in municipalities' transition strategies.