Abstract Transdisciplinary collaborative processes like knowledge co-production have been promoted as valuable mechanisms to address complex environmental management issues. Their value is based on epistemic and participatory ideals involving academic and non-academic knowledge and values being elicited and deliberated upon. While idealised processes of participation have been described, the actual nature of non-academic contributions including those of environmental managers has received scant attention. We explore the role and input of environmental managers in knowledge co-production, drawing on two cases from Australia and South Africa. We use an analytical frame based on the co-production idiom which focuses on process legitimacy when involving lay participants in science-informed dialogue. Environmental managers tend to be treated as part of a homogeneous group of ‘policy-makers’ but our research reveals that this characterisation masks individuals with a diversity of motivations, skills and responsibilities who contribute empirical, pragmatic and normative knowledge to co-production. Our results also suggest that environmental managers were not always able to contribute meaningfully to the critical early step of issue definition. These new insights suggest better conceptualisation of decision-maker expertise and roles, and flexibility in design and implementation of collaborative processes, are required if knowledge co-production is to achieve a participatory ideal and substantively better environmental management decisions.

中文翻译：

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环境管理者在知识共同生产中的作用：来自两个案例研究的见解

摘要 知识共同生产等跨学科协作过程已被推广为解决复杂环境管理问题的宝贵机制。它们的价值基于涉及学术和非学术知识以及被引出和审议的价值观的认知和参与理想。虽然已经描述了理想化的参与过程，但包括环境管理人员在内的非学术贡献的实际性质却很少受到关注。我们利用澳大利亚和南非的两个案例，探讨了环境管理者在知识合作生产中的作用和投入。我们使用基于共同生产习语的分析框架，该习语侧重于让非专业参与者参与科学对话时的过程合法性。环境管理者往往被视为同质“政策制定者”群体的一部分，但我们的研究表明，这种特征掩盖了具有多种动机、技能和责任的个人，他们为共同生产贡献了经验、实用和规范知识。我们的结果还表明，环境经理并不总是能够对问题定义的关键早期步骤做出有意义的贡献。这些新见解表明，如果要实现参与式理想和实质性更好的环境管理决策，就需要更好地概念化决策者的专业知识和角色，以及协作过程设计和实施的灵活性。