Applied research has evolved to play an important role in understanding and reorienting relationships between different knowledge partnerships in urban sustainability. This paper reflects on experiences from the global South on knowledge co-production experiments through ‘CityLabs’, which are forums for bringing together different knowledge brokers (particularly government and academia) to co-produce policy-relevant urban knowledge. Each CityLab experimented with different configurations to generate knowledge relevant for addressing urban sustainability challenges. This paper reflects on these experiences and identifies emerging common principles. These include: deliberate formulation of safe spaces, in which to engage, willingness for flexibility around the direction, focus and outputs, and carefully fostering trust and mutual understanding among participants. Urban experimentation, and CityLabs in particular, provide real opportunities for facilitating learning, reframing issues and shifting practices around urban sustainability between government and the academy.

应用研究已发展为在理解和重新定位城市可持续发展中不同知识伙伴关系之间的关系方面发挥重要作用。本文回顾了南方国家通过“ CityLabs”进行的知识共同生产实验的经验，这些实验是将不同的知识经纪人（尤其是政府和学术界）召集在一起，共同生产与政策相关的城市知识的论坛。每个CityLab都尝试了不同的配置，以产生与应对城市可持续性挑战相关的知识。本文对这些经验进行了反思，并确定了新兴的通用原则。其中包括：精心设计安全空间，参与其中；在方向，重点和输出方面愿意保持灵活性；并认真促进参与者之间的信任和相互理解。城市实验，尤其是CityLabs，为促进学习，重新定位问题以及在政府与学院之间围绕城市可持续性发展的实践提供了真正的机会。