The interrupting capacities of knowledge co-production experiments: A sociology of testing approach

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Introduction
Pervasive environmental problems challenge the operation of policy institutions and the organisation of policy processes (Hajer, 2003;Humalisto et al., 2020).Their wicked nature means that the problems do not fit neatly into existing institutional arrangements and sectoral divisions (Rittel and Webber, 1973).Moreover, boundaries need to be crossed not only between administrative silos, but also between the different fields and types of expertise.This has generated a call for forms of 'knowledge co-production' capable of bringing together diverse expertise to identify and explore solutions to societal problems (e.g., Frantzeskaki and Kabisch, 2016;Tiitu et al., 2021;Turnhout et al., 2020).Within sustainability science (Wyborn et al., 2019) and sustainability transitions literature (Köhler et al., 2019), co-production is seen as a tool to meet grand social challenges as it addresses the complex, uncertain and contested nature of sustainability.The co-productive processes reorient science (and scientists) from being a provider of knowledge to a partner in negotiating and co-producing shared knowledge with other experts (Wyborn, 2015).Increased epistemic and agential diversity is seen central for knowledge to be 'more accessible, relevant, and credible' (Jagannathan et al., 2020, p. 22) compared to disciplinary models of scientific knowledge production (Wyborn, 2015).
Knowledge co-production as a governance instrument, and a knowledge practice, is not to be mixed with Sheila Jasanoff's (2004) theory of knowledge co-production that emphasises the two-way interaction between knowledge production and social order.However, as an instrument, knowledge co-production seeks to contribute to reshaping of social orders as it travels with the broad aim of 'shifting the institutional arrangements that govern relationships between knowledge and power, science and society, and state and citizens' (Wyborn et al., 2019, p. 319).
While knowledge co-production experiments allow analysis and deliberation to occur disconnected from established administrative silos and routines, these types of governance experiments (Bulkeley and Castán Broto, 2013;Matschoss and Repo, 2018) come with arrangements and demarcations of their own.Knowledge co-production processes need to provide 'carefully orchestrated' spaces for participation (Macnaghten, 2021, p. 14).This orchestration calls for agreement on process steps, timetables, meeting sites and outputs, for example.As a collaborative process, co-production happens in a concrete time-space.The temporal and spatial organisation necessarily bears effect on the process (Botero et al., 2020;Jensen and Petersen, 2016).In addition, socio-material ordering is needed to render the multidimensional and complex environmental topics amenable for joint analysis and deliberation.Even when the aim is to provide room for the multiplicity of voices, viewpoints and epistemic backgrounds, specific means are needed to focus and channel the discussions so that the contributions become interrelated and perhaps mutually enriching (Hyysalo et al., 2019d).Those orchestrating knowledge co-production must define the common task in some detail.In addition, conceptual categories, at the minimum, are needed to set landmarks for the navigation that lays ahead.
The various means of socio-material orchestration operate in two directions.They bring a wide array of expertise and experiences together, but also draw boundaries by indicating who, and what environmental dimensions and policy aspects, can gain attention and become influential in terms of the orchestrated space (Chilvers and Kearnes, 2020;Gomart and Hajer, 2003;Macnaghten, 2021;Moretto and Ranzato, 2017;Valve et al., 2013Valve et al., , 2017)).
Although knowledge co-production requires careful design and facilitation, the processes have been analysed mostly based on who they bring together and what knowledge is produced (e.g., Djenontin and Meadow, 2018;Jagannathan et al., 2020).In this paper, we argue that the novelty of the experiments lies not only in the diversity of participants or in the generated recommendations.Equally interesting, and no doubt novel, is the form of socio-material orchestration that allows a new actor constellation to co-produce fresh knowledge.As experimental forms of expert collaboration and policy consultation, knowledge co-production processes can differ radically from institutionalised practices.The experimental processes can come to question the ways policy options are envisioned, environmental issues are configured, and expertise is defined in the every-day routines of public administration.
Drawing from science and technology studies (STS) and the 'new sociology of testing', developed by Marres and Stark (2020), we suggest that knowledge co-production experiments can be analysed as interventions in established knowledge generation and policymaking practices.Such a shift gives justice to the role of unofficial, explorative processes not only as separate orchestrated spaces, but also as potential means for the re-orchestration of policymaking.It becomes possible to critically engage in how co-production practices entangle with the settings to which they are introduced and how they perform political work in perhaps unexpected ways.So far, such analyses have been lacking (Wyborn et al., 2019).
We apply the methodological perspective to an analysis of two regional 'transition arena' (TA) processes carried out in Finland.Both processes sought to generate knowledge to envision and promote a sustainable blue bioeconomy.TAs are a core part of transition management, which aims to create a 'governance strategy to orient and organize transformation in complex networks in the context of broader societal transitions' (Loorbach and Wijsman, 2013, p. 21).In line with the principles of knowledge co-production, TAs aim to create 'an advocacy coalition that identifies and reframes a persistent problem; articulates and commits to a vision of sustainable development and to a shared agenda for moving in this direction' (Frantzeskaki et al., 2012b, p. 28).
In the TA experiments, attempts to orchestrate knowledge coproduction encounter the assumptions and aspirations of the TA participants and facilitators.Interventive aspects are then likely to become indicated by those who are accustomed to established practices: 'when habitual ways of doing get interrupted in social life, whether by accident or as a consequence of deliberate disruption, social actors are prompted to articulate their attachments and relations' (Marres and Stark, 2020, p. 437).By focusing on what we call 'critical interruptions'-on the aspects in co-production orchestration that the interviewed participants and TA facilitators raise as novel or consequential-it becomes possible for us to tease out how, and in what terms, the processes challenged or exceeded business-as-usual policy practices to which our interviewees were attached.The interviewees may, for example, point to a TA as a specific kind of space that differs radically from the arrangements in which stakeholders typically interact.
Analysis of the critical interruptions articulated by participants and facilitators of knowledge co-production experiments can help to unpack institutionalised policy arrangements and practices.It is hard to make the 'default' arrangements, norms, and practices visible without somehow disturbing them.Furthermore, responses to the orchestration attempts may open new questions critical for the development of knowledge co-production.As interaction in knowledge co-production processes 'overflows' in ways that challenge the orchestration attempts, unexpected outcomes emerge: 'Testing raises the determinate possibility of change in several different directions.In such a situation contestation is not simply proposing an alternative way to measure some attribute but pointing to a different value altogether along a very different dimension and according to another accountability.'(Marres and Stark, 2020, p. 430).
In our analysis of two TA experiments, we adapt an open-ended research strategy through which we trace how the interviewees place knowledge co-production processes in relation to societal practices, processes and arrangements.We, thus, use the interviews to examine how the TAs were linked with existing expertise-provision and policymaking practices as sources of interruption.We then ask what do the linkages, as critical interruptions, reveal about the orchestration of policymaking regarding aquatic resources in the two regions.In other words, what do the evaluations of the TAs tell us about business-as-usual arrangements?Finally, what new dimensions and questions do the critical interruptions open regarding the politics of, and within, knowledge co-production experiments?
We have structured the remainder of the paper as follows.Section 2 outlines our analytical approach, drawing from STS-based perspectives.Section 3 documents the case study, methodology and data.Sections 4 and 5 documents the results and discussion, respectively.Section 6 concludes.

Orchestration experiments as generative interventions
In knowledge co-production processes, the challenge is to facilitate meaningful engagement, joint analysis, and the generation of actionable outcomes (Wyborn et al., 2019).Expanding the array of participants and expertise beyond what is regarded as 'normal' is not enough.In addition, there is a need for tools and principles that maintain orchestration while guiding the collective to innovate, synthesise and disagree in fruitful ways.In the case of TAs, transition management manuals (e.g., Roorda et al., 2014;Wittmayer et al., 2018) define general process phases, rules for discussion and a heuristic understanding that signals what types of findings should be co-produced.Furthermore, recognising the importance of orchestration has resulted in the development of procedural designs, facilitation practices and material devices that channel participant action (Hyysalo et al., 2019d).Hyysalo et al., (2019d, p. 890) point to the particular importance of 'intermediate designs' that 'help participants reach meaningful outcomes in the face of high complexity and divergent participant perspectives'.
In co-production experiments, process designs are put into practice through the adaptive use of principles, heuristic understandings and channelling devices.However, adaptation is only possible in certain limits.For example, timetables create restrictions for the engagement of busy people.All the invitees may not be able to join the process.Time also limits design of specific meetings: joint co-production events must be efficient and focused enough to generate tangible outputs within a set time frame.
Knowledge and innovation co-production as a transient achievement in socio-material orchestration has been studied to examine the types of visible and invisible work necessary for co-production to proceed (e.g., Jensen and Petersen, 2016).For example, in their study of community innovation Verhaegh et al. (2016) highlight alignment work among the initiators and organizers; domestication work regarding technologies as mediators of participation; and care work to nurture engagement and co-production.Hyysalo et al. (2019a) study of hosted participant communities builds on this typology to elaborate relevance work, selection work (of participants, of methods etc.), and constituency building work which the initiators must undertake.They proceed to showcase how intermediate design work translates the different forms of labour into workshop and participation structures and to additional forms of care and domestication work.The gist of the studies lies in showing how co-production is premised on the intertwining of ideals, method templates, and arrays of mundane pragmatics, among others (Botero et al., 2020).The net effect is a shift from viewing co-production as a distinct type of social activity that happens in one or other 'context', to studying coproducing as a dynamic (and partial) achievement of more or less successful work in which settings are transformed into a situation of action, attributable as a co-productive one (cf.Clarke, 2005).
Many of these insights find a parallel expression in the studies on testing within STS, where experimental designs have been studied as settings in relation to which an object gains properties.However, the object under analysis does not leave the experimental setting intact.The interplay may generate unexpected consequences that should be recognised and reflected upon (Kautto and Valve, 2019;Michael, 2012;Stengers, 1997).Analyses of public participation experiments (Chilvers and Kearnes, 2020;Lezaun et al., 2017) and environmental planning processes (Gomart and Hajer, 2003;Valve et al., 2013Valve et al., , 2017) ) show how orchestrated process set-ups can become questioned from different directions at the same time.The process then tests the capacities of someone or something to channel attentiveness (Marres and Lezaun, 2011;Valve et al., 2013Valve et al., , 2017)).
The perspective provided by the new sociology of testing (Marres and Stark, 2020) further expands our comprehension of orchestration as a tested and testing object.According to Marres and Stark (2020, p. 525), real-world experiments such as TAs are tests 'not just in society but are tests of society'.This means that knowledge co-production experiments also test previous, established and perhaps naturalised forms of orchestration.Knowledge co-production experiments are explicitly tailored to reform policymaking, implying that they seek to 'directly and deliberately modify the environment' (Marres and Stark, 2020, p. 463) instead of merely happening 'inside social environments' (Marres and Stark, 2020).As a result, it is meaningful to treat knowledge co-production processes as interventions and carriers of interruption.When intervened, prevailing arrangements and modes of socio-material orchestration-as features of the settings in which the TA experiments are carried out-become visible and challenged.
As re-orchestrations of knowledge production and policy preparation, knowledge co-production experiments have the specific potential to make human-environment interactions influential in new ways.Whatmore's (2013); see also Landström et al. (2011) study on a heterogeneous 'competency group' that was orchestrated to generate understanding of the reoccurring floods in Pickering, UK, shows how knowledge co-production can question established modes in which flooding, for example, becomes officially known.The study's experiment generated a moment of ontological disturbance during which 'expert knowledge claims, and the technologies through which these become hardwired into the working practices of commerce and government' (Whatmore, 2013, p. 39) became contested.Knowledge co-production, thus, interrupted policymaking in profound ways instead of merely adding new understandings on top of pre-existing knowledge claims.

Regional transition arenas as knowledge co-production experiments
Analysis of the interplay between experiments and their settings calls for a case study approach.Furthermore, we expect that a parallel analysis of two similar, but regionally distinct experiments can well serve the identification and categorisation of the intervening capacities of TA experiments.Both TA experiments we analyse sought to generate transition pathways-envisioned timelines of systemically interrelated actions towards desired social change (Hyysalo et al., 2019b, p. 2)needed to enhance transformation towards sustainable blue bioeconomy.The blue bioeconomy concept has gained currency in Finland by providing a framework to utilise blue resources such as fish stocks, amenity values and energy-production potentials without compromising sustainability goals (Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, 2016).
The TAs serve our aim to analyse knowledge co-production processes as tests of orchestration.Since its emergence in the late 1990 s, several manuals have emerged to establish a codified 'process methodology' for TAs in terms of individual steps (Frantzeskaki et al., 2012a;Roorda et al., 2014;Wittmayer et al., 2018).The co-creation tools and processes have, however, been based on basic supportive materials (e.g., pens and sticky notes) and the formulation of transition pathways has been mainly done by facilitators (Hyysalo et al., 2019c).To address these limitations, process design and codesign methods and tools have been developed to support joint analysis and innovation (see Hyysalo et al., 2019b).
The TAs we analyse utilised the mid-range transition pathway creation toolset (MTPT) (Hyysalo et al., 2019c(Hyysalo et al., , 2019d)).The MTPT is an intermediate design to channel participant interaction when building transition pathways.A large metallic pathway board, and movable hexagonal magnets allow participants to assemble and reorganise clusters of activities when developing the pathways, see Fig. 1.In the process, participants first identify and fill pathway step magnets towards the collaboratively developed transition goal, and after prioritisation of the steps attach predesignated step enablers (13 in total, e.g., policy, technology, and business) to them to interrogate how each step could become realised.While participants can engage in deep discussions on specific elements on the pathway, the role of the facilitator is to guide the arrangement of the larger whole, ensure equal participation, and help to identify the interrelations between different elements.

The case study regions and processes
The TAs analysed were organised by the Finnish Environment Institute with the help of Aalto University, and Savonia University of Fig. 1.The cover photo of the TA report (Valve et al., 2019) showing the mid-range transition pathway creation toolset (Photo by Jani Lukkarinen).
H. Valve et al.Applied Sciences in North Savo and the regional, publicly funded, advisory organisation Valonia in Southwest Finland. 2 The processes took place in the regions of Southwest Finland and North Savo, see Fig. 2. Southwest Finland is a fairly prosperous coastal region, while North Savo is characterised by freshwater environments but qualifies as a declining region (Fina et al., 2021).In such regions the need for public services grows at the same time as the economic growth, population and incomes fall.
In both regions, there is a need for solutions that could help to protect blue resources while, at the same time, allowing for more value to be generated from underutilised resources.The latter include nutrient-rich side-flows and specific fish stocks.For example, the increase of cyprinids (Cyprinidae) in water ecosystems is part of the eutrophication cycle that needs to be halted.Cyprinids cause a swelling of the lake bottom which releases nutrients from the sediment.The fish also graze on zooplankton, which results in an increase in primary production of phytoplankton, and eutrophication.However, the cyprinids catch seldom generates revenues for fishers, as no market for fresh cyprinids exists and only few food manufactures are specialised in processing them (Mäki, 2018).At the same time, fish farming in Southwest Finland is profitable to the extent that it attracts investments to increase production.However, as fish-farming causes nutrient loading to water bodies that are below the good ecological status as defined by the Water Framework Directive (2000/60/EC), investments in production increase are viewed critically by environmental authorities (Soininen et al., 2019).
Table 1 presents the two TA experiments.The North Savo TA included 14 regional experts with varying backgrounds as well as 2 regional facilitators.In the subsequent Southwest Finland TA, there were 18 experts and 3 regional facilitators.In both cases about one third of the participants were assumed to be female.This low share reflects male-dominance among blue bioeconomy experts and entrepreneurs.In the fields of fisheries and fish-farming, in particular, the entrepreneurs, policy officials and researchers are mostly men.The composition of the TA teams came to reflect this asymmetry.
The aim of stakeholder selection was to assemble a concise group to constructively partake the pathway creation and provide complementary expertise.To have a balanced exchange of knowledge, we aimed for comprehensive selection between public sector, knowledge producers, large companies, start-up entrepreneurs and civil society.From each category, we chose 1-2 persons to be invited.Not all contacted persons responded and of those who did, some either declined the invitation or did not eventually turn up in the TA workshops.In both arenas, we failed to enrol 3-5 persons we had identified as blue economy experts.In the public sector, the invitation was passed further to colleagues which in some cases were more junior than the ones we had initially contacted.
The processes were designed to create transition pathways to inform policymaking in the two regions and, in part, at the national level.We came up with the idea to analyse the experiments as tests of existing practices when analysing the feedback that we received from the TA participants and facilitators.
The North Savo TA and the Southwest Finland TA produced four and three thematic transition pathways, respectively.Approximately 30 immediate actions were developed in both cases.These actions indicated who should take responsibility for the first pathway steps.No resources were dedicated to the monitoring of the take-up of the pathways, but it appears that since the completion of the TAs, individual components of the transition pathways have been realised.For example, some new economic subsidy schemes that were identified as critical for a blue bioeconomy transition have been introduced.Meanwhile, none of the transition pathways has been implemented in detail.Taken the experimental, unofficial status of the TAs, this is unsurprising.It is more likely that the pathways have gained value by showing how different public and private actions can be brought together to enhance blue bioeconomy transitions (Valve et al., 2022).However, the evaluation of the policy impact of the transition pathways goes beyond the scope of this paper.

Data and analysis
Our assumption is that the interruptive dimensions of the experiments can be traced from interviews in which the experiment participants and facilitators evaluate the processes.When the established forms of acting as an expert and a policy advisor meet, and potentially clash with, the rationales and designs of co-production experiments, new aspects became revealed about knowledge co-production as well about the established practices and arrangements.We use the notion of critical interruption to identify how the interviewees brought the experiments in relation to what is normal, or what would have been optimal or needed.The latter, explicitly normative standpoints allow us to identify participants' and facilitators' expectations and wishes regarding what orchestration of knowledge co-production should entail, either in general or in the specific cases.The articulations make the attachments and relations of the interviewees visible, being therefore indicative of established orchestrations and the interruptive functions of the two experiments.
Our data consists of 20 participant evaluation interviews (10 interviews in both regions) and 4 facilitator interviews collected after each workshop series.Two facilitator interviews covered both transition arenas.The interviews were originally carried out to serve the evaluation of the TA experiments.The participant interviews were carried out 4-6 months after each arena process was concluded with the participants most actively taking part in the process (more than 50% participation in workshops and active generation of input) and with even representation between the different themes of blue bioeconomy.We asked the participants e.g., about participant recruitment; the functionality of different arena phases and tools; general usefulness of the experiments and the transferability of the methodology to other uses and settings.All interviews were recorded and transcribed verbatim.
We coded the interview data based on the aspects that the interviewees articulated as novel or distinctive; surprising or disappointing; or successful or unsuccessful characteristics of the TA.These dimensions were often discussed together.The NVivo coding tree included nodes such as 'TAs as positive breaks from established trajectories' or 'expectations regarding TAs'.We also captured evaluations of specific TA steps (see Table 1).After the first coding round, we crossexamined the codes, categorising together the articulations that brought the TAs in relation to same pre-existing modes of socio-material orchestration.

Transition arenas as distracting encounters
Knowledge co-production experiments have the potential to intervene in many established routines and practices.As co-production is premised on the engagement of individuals, it is useful to start by an account by a participant from the Southwest Finland TA that locates the experiment at a very personal level.Although the participant found time to come to the most meetings, she had to struggle to accommodate herself into the orchestrated space.However, the intervention of the TA in personal life appeared as a normal part of expert work.The TA qualified as one of 'these things', as an orchestrated process of deliberation to which one becomes integrated and immersed.As such, the TA tested the capacities of the expert to focus on the transition pathways under making and to break free, for a moment, from other duties: 2 More information about the organising institutions can be find from the following websites: Finnish Environment Institute: www.syke.fi;Aalto University: www.aalto.fi;Savonia University of Applied Sciences: www.savonia.fi;Valonia: www.valonia.fi.

H. Valve et al.
'You always learn in these things; it [the TA] was a good place to stop, to share, to think.But there is this thing… that when you get there, you come from a situation and then you are put -without much warmingto work upon something.It's not that you would come from a peaceful moment to develop things… it's just how this everyday life is.' (Southwest Finland, participant 6) For a North Savo participant, 'these things'-i.e., interactive workshops in general-were not necessarily a welcomed part of expert work.The civil servant expressed specific frustration in the lack of expertise in the TA and in the detours that were taken before the pathway creation finally reached the relevant points.The overall mode of knowledge production, and the engagement of non-experts, was seen to lead attention astray: 'Maybe a little bit beating the head against the wall.You don't necessarily solve the things, the problems that I know, with that kind of a group work.Yes, in the end, the message got through, but I had to do some work.Fisheries may not have been the strongest area of knowledge among those who had prepared this [the TA].The idea is good, to increase the use of domestic lake fish.But having done the same job for tens of years, I know the preconditions a little too well.'(North Savo, participant 7) A participant in the Southwest Finland TA, with a long career as a fisheries scholar, also argued that he knew a great deal more about the shaping of fish value chains than those who had been invited to contribute by providing insights, for example, about fish consumer products under development.The participant referred to the co-participants as novices that were unhelpful in the common task.The capacities of co-participants to meaningfully contribute to joint analysis and innovation can indeed be limited, but the discontentment can also point to unwelcomed and unnecessary interruption in hardwired practices of knowledge production and governance.The TAs, thus, intervened with prevailing modes of evidence generation but did not seriously challenge how policy issues and policy-relevant expertise are configured.

Interventions in workshop orchestration
In many interviews the TA experiments were discussed as interventions in stakeholder engagement and expert consultation practices.The participants and facilitators who were favourable to the idea of expert collaboration tended to agree that the TA process and tools provided intriguing means to break away from what they saw as established policy and workshop routines.The carefully designed process allowed to articulate the dysfunctionality of the business-as-usual practices: 'The method was somehow better structured.There are so many workshops nowadays and they all somehow easily entrench existing silos.This was in my opinion better because you were forced to come out a bit.I liked this better than yes-no sessions.I feel that people loosened up a bit, which helps in meeting others half-way.'(Southwest Finland, participant 1) The TA participants who were critical towards the very idea of knowledge co-production had little to say about the pros and cons of the H. Valve et al. process design.Meanwhile, some interviewees emphasised the efforts that were needed to make sense of the new approach.The TA methodology introduced unfamiliar terms to channel argumentation, innovation and discussion.As one sign of this, the domain experts who had enrolled as facilitators had to invest in learning new concepts: 'I had to get to know it [the TA facilitation guide] a bit, because there were a lot of new terms, for example' (Facilitator 2).Likewise, focusing on blue bioeconomy required some participants to reset their expectations concerning the subject matter.For example, instead of a direct focus on achieving good ecological status of waters (as required by the Water Framework Directive), the co-production process centred on supporting economic renewal through means by which blue resources and water protection could be transformed into sustainable sources of economic value.In other words, at stake was not only more efficient water protection, but also the ways the protected resources, and the protective measures, such as cyprinids fishing, could generate economic value.
The tools designed for TA workshops were appreciated as they served a positive break away from those often used in collaborative workshops.The magnetic pathway steps and the step enablers used to construct transition pathways were regarded to usefully channel thinking and deliberation.As the magnets were easy to place and replace, they supported joint iteration: 'Yes, the tool (the magnet board) served its purpose as in the process under focus was a large whole that was interdisciplinary in a good sense.Expertise from a single field does not enable seeing the entire whole.' (Facilitator 1).
'Well, the path creation work was interesting.I liked it, very much, that work.And I liked that it was like that we went back and forth [reorganising the pathway steps]… it was really meaningful.I liked the magnets [in themselves], too, because you just kind of -I understood well their significance… that thanks to them you could think of different perspectives.That's what are the legislative, financial, social [step enablers]… how they come to matter.' (North Savo, participant 3) The TA, and particularly the pathway work also tested the customary forms of facilitation in workshops, as it required active engagement with the pathway steps and step enablers instead of generating space for open-ended deliberation.However, those favouring the customary forms could criticise the adapted facilitation practices as too rigid: 'When X [a facilitator] ran the conversation, they [the participants] were supposed to do specifically what that facilitator instructed, and yet the role of the facilitator is to facilitate that conversation but not define it… ….so [X] dominated the discussion a lot.' (Facilitator 3) The room for manoeuvring, which facilitators and participants could use differently, generated also positively felt deviations from the customary modes of workshop organisation: 'The thoughts extended and accelerated in a rather nice way… not like in the other [abovementioned pathway group] where they were more attached to what is already going on what is and is not possible.I don't quite know if this fits with others' understandings, but it feels for me that in our team people went a long way in thinking about the issues and maybe not worrying about all the limitations of what there is at the moment, although of course those [the limitations] were also listed there.'(Facilitator 4).
As an intervention in how co-production was orchestrated the TA revealed how co-production events had already found routine forms and expectations among the expert participants and facilitators.The TA intervened in the customary ways in which knowledge co-production is orchestrated in policy processes and governance experiments.

Table 1
The TA process steps.

Transition arenas as interventions in regional policymaking
The critical interruptions articulated connected the TAs also to specific regional policy issues and policy practices.Established understandings of the building blocks of policies and policymaking were placed on trial.In the TAs, enhancement of blue economy transitions was expected to proceed via a multi-scalar interplay between policy instruments and private actions.Although the outlined dynamics were not deemed outright wrong, they were sometimes criticised for missing what was really at stake in policymaking.
In North Savo, it was argued that the TA did not give due attention to the generation of regional development projects.For declining regions such as North Savo, EU Structural Funds provide economic support to 'increase employment and strengthen the competitiveness and vitality of regions' (Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment, 2021).This support shapes the policy and business environments so that in North Savo, the TA was expected to serve as an arena in which those planning and executing regional development projects and those responsible for the funding decisions could meet.According to this view, a policy-relevant encounter should orchestrate dialogue between these counterparts and not treat project initiation merely as one way to implement a blue bioeconomy transition.The critical interruptions made visible a regional practice orchestrated to enhance project-based research, development and innovation (RDI) work funded by regional development funds.The TA was seen to intervene by bypassing the regional reality: 'It would be good for financiers to be involved, but also the other way around… it may be good to approach entrepreneurs with this [transition arena] report, and even regarding RDI projects, and then national and local decision-makers to push them… we also need state support to get things moving.'(Facilitator 1 from the region) 'The core water experts [and project initiators] were not involved.It seemed to me that working [in the TA] went astray.' (North Savo, participant 1).
The Southwest Finland arena, in its turn, intervened in an on-going conflict over fish farming and its regulation.This conflict proved to orchestrate relationships in a way that also shaped what was expected from the TA.Influential attachments became evident as a participant announced that they had expected that the TA would provide a channel to convince other participants and even to 'speak truth to power': 'Yes, I would have liked to have the environmental administration side to be brainwashed as well… In the administration we clearly have a division, and that it [the environmental side] is extremely critical of fish farming and its emissions… … In that sense, there could be a couple of guys [sic] involved in hearing the views of [us] others.' (Southwest Finland, participant 9) From the point of view of the disappointed participants, the TA intervened in regional policymaking in an unfruitful way.The articulation can also be read to point to the interruption of the TA to established forms of policy dialogue.
The question regarding whether the TA should provide space primarily for curiosity-driven knowledge co-production, or rather for target-driven policymaking, divided the participants.Some of the interviewees specifically welcomed the intervention made by the coproductive rationale while to others, as noted, it appeared meaningless.As pointed to in the previous section, frustration could also be also caused by the participant constellation that was viewed to be unsuited for the production of policy-relevant knowledge.The intervention was then placed in relation to bureaucratic practices such as fisheries management which are based on the utilisation of specific kind of scientific evidence and application of standardised regulatory tools.The businessas-usual practices and analytical approaches were momentarily interrupted.

Connecting transition pathways and policymaking
The significance of the co-produced outputs and messages beyond the experiments was a topic in relation to which the interventive roles of the experiments were intensively discussed.The lack of concreteness in the outcomes particularly troubled those participants who had hoped the TAs to make precise recommendations about fish farming, for example.Likewise, for some, the transition pathways appeared merely as summaries of features that were already known from before.However, the transition pathways were also seen to intervene in policymaking and to do so by providing a fresh and useful insight on how change could proceed through steps at different dimensions: 'That planning of future was clearly most useful… or the outlining of how those things could progress… That is, a kind of a roadmap for a few years ahead, even up to the year 2035.And it was clearly good.This is rarely done, even at the level of [private] companies.'(Southwest Finland, participant 4).
The TA documents summarising the joint findings, recommendations and proposed divisions of responsibility were not, however, expected to have much impact without active marketing or even coordination.In this sense, the TAs tested the capacities of policymaking to become responsive to new type of policy support and to adapt new configurations of policy issues.It was also asked whether the usability of the coproduced knowledge should have been considered more carefully during the TA processes: 'But it feels… it should have been articulated more strongly from a planning perspective.This [the TA] is definitely different from traditional planning.There are so many planning processes related to land-use.And some say this [the TA] was looser [than the planning processes].But it is because we did take this issue of deliberation more seriously here and then also gave room for such discussions that are not so.or in a way tried to break away from that [institutionalised] narrow production of information.'(Facilitator 5).
'Someone should have a responsibility to do follow-on steps or periods to map whether it is visible that this kind of pathway is moving forward.' (Southwest Finland, participant 2) The detachment of the TAs from formal policy processes and governance structures was seen simultaneously as a strength and a weakness.The experimental status of the processes extended the room to manoeuvre, generating space for the innovation of networked, crossspatial and cross-sectoral pathways.However, this occurred at the cost of potential disconnection from the administrative processes and structures critical for the realisation of the pathways.

Discussion
Our analysis shows that while the experts involved with the two TA experiments appeared relatively familiar with collaborative policymaking and knowledge co-production, the TAs intervened in 'businessas-usual' practices and conventional policymaking orchestrations in various ways.The critical interruptions pointed to interventions made by the collaborative working mode, the TA methodology and the midrange design, and by our specific adaptation of these features (Table 2).
Focusing on the critical interruptions revealed conditions that circumscribe the making of blue bioeconomy transitions in the two regions.Established modes of bringing actors, policy instruments and aquatic resources together, or keeping them apart, became interrupted by the framework that guided knowledge co-production in the TA experiments (third row in Table 2).In North Savo, Structural Funds' projects were given a marginal and instrumental role in the transition pathways.However, for some of the TA participants, project initiation is what is expected to bring regional experts together in the first place.In the region, project-based development orchestrates collaboration across administrative units and scales, and between private and public spheres.The testing of this practice by the TA was seen by some participants as a mistake.The knowledge co-production experiment was argued to have lost some of its relevance as it did not build on the established policymaking practice.
In Southwest Finland, the TA experiment interrupted the struggle over the future of fish farming in the coastal regions.The interruption made evident that there is a policy deadlock that divides actors and, thus, resists knowledge co-production.The conflict affects the relationships among the participants in a way that cannot be easily undermined by even the most careful process design or care work.
Neither the fish farming conflict, nor the project-driven mode of policymaking witnessed in North Savo, can be seen as separate 'barriers' (Bulkeley et al., 2005) to blue bioeconomy transitions.Rather, the features qualify as attractors that orchestrate policymaking in the two regions.The treatment of knowledge co-production processes as tests of society (Marres and Stark, 2020), thus, enabled us to see how our orchestration attempts related to pre-existing modes of social and political ordering.This means that knowledge co-production as a theory (Jasanoff, 2004) could be made influential for the analysis of knowledge co-production as an instrument by drawing attention to the role of socio-material (re)orchestration in policymaking.
Our analysis of critical interruptions also makes explicit emergent outcomes significant for the understanding of knowledge co-production experiments as sites of environmental politics.We learned that when participants brought specific agendas to shape knowledge co-production in either of the two cases, they were seldom content with the ways interaction was orchestrated.Critical interruptions were articulated as the participants wanted to influence policies through political influence that took place in the TA and through the dissemination of the policy recommendations after the process.When the TA was seen as site of convincing others, the absence the specific powerful actors was regarded as unfortunate.Meanwhile, the analytical goals were seen as secondary.After all, the solutions significant for a blue economy transition were, according to these participants, known from the start.
The introduction of a specific political agenda to the TA highlights the potential of collaborative experiments to intervene in different policy orchestrations and trajectories.The maintenance of orchestration calls for the coordination of different interventive roles and capacities of knowledge co-production.This point adds an additional dimension to the understanding of the politics of knowledge co-production, raised by Turnhout et al. (2020).Under contestation is not only who and what counts in terms of an orchestrated space, or how the space should evolve as a whole; but also-and interrelatedly-which intervening aspects of co-production, if any, should be nurtured.
The critical interruptions articulated also point to struggles over the configuration of blue bioeconomy concerns.In the TAs, efforts were taken to turn the deliberation 'to the right track'.This suggests that the experiments interrupted as sources of ontological disturbances (first row in Table 2).Indeed, the very idea behind knowledge co-production experiments is to reach beyond bureaucratic and epistemic silos, implying that they are likely reach also beyond 'the ontological settlement… which expert environmental management practices assume and perpetuate' (Whatmore, 2013, p. 45).Moreover, the TA heuristics and tools provide ordering concepts (Lahn, 2021;Valve et al., 2022) to support joint analysis from a new angle.
As became evident in the TA experiments, ontological disturbance necessarily happens in two directions.The pre-existing settlements with their embedded means to make sense of policy-relevant interactions become consequential for knowledge co-production in one way or another.In such circumstances careful design and active channelling of knowledge co-production tends to be needed to prevent the processes to become overtaken by pre-existing orderings.Maybe due to such empowering functions, the TA methodology with its accompanying tools were often regarded by our interviewees as improvements compared to established practices of collaborative governance (second row in Table 2).However, actors and their collaboration can never be disentangled from other orchestrated forms of life, knowledge generation and policymaking, and neither should such purification be the goal (Marres and Lezaun, 2011).
The differentiating ways of knowing policy-relevant interactions also become intertwined as the knowledge and recommendations coproduced transform into concrete actions (third row in Table 2).The reliability of this link troubled our interviewees.Indeed, there are always likely to be tension in need of reconciliation (Clark and Wyborn, 2020).The TAs and other knowledge co-production processes, as 'breakaways' and silo-crossing governance experiments, are to navigate the perilous passage between the Charybdis of merely reproducing the pre-existing modes of orchestration and their co-constitutive ontological settlements in one or other form and the Scylla of being too far departed and thus having a hampered capacity of the co-produced knowledge to gain effect in relation of the established silos.

Conclusions
Drawing from the 'new sociology of testing', and extending it to the study of expert and citizen participation in environmental governance, we have argued in this paper that orchestrated knowledge co-production processes can be usefully analysed as interventions in established practices and arrangements of environmental policymaking.The methodology provides a relational sensitivity to analyse the interplay between knowledge co-production experiments and their settings.The aim to reorganise relationships between experts and expertise warrants such a relational approach.
Analysis of the critical interruptions articulated by participants and facilitators in two transition arena experiments allowed us to identify established dispositions and orderings that the TA processes put on trial.Discussions about the TAs and their fruitfulness placed the processes in relation to business-as-usual practices of policy collaboration and its facilitation.In North Savo, the experiment qualified as an attempt to shake up policy practices oscillating around the initiation and implementation of regional development projects.Meanwhile, in Southwest Finland the experiments were brought into the middle of a natural resource conflict and the divisions that had become cemented.
Treatment of knowledge co-production processes as tests of orchestration allows sensitisation to the unexpected and generative consequences of experimentation.The consequences of knowledge co-

Table 2
The old (tested) and new (testing) dimensions shaping co-production of knowledge in the studied cases.production cannot be grasped in dualistic terms, as a potential replacement of a specific type of authority by epistemic and agential diversity.The dynamic is more multidimensional and emergent, occurring through the interplay between old and new modes of sociomaterial orchestration.
Conceptualising knowledge co-production experiments as tests of orchestration can help us to face, and to take stock of, the resistances and surprises that unfold.Acknowledging that knowledge co-production processes necessarily intervene makes anyone facilitating these processes better prepared to respond to the frustrations and resistances that become aired.It may even be possible to think how the collisions could be turned into new problem and policy formulations.Co-production would then occur not just between experts, but also between institutionalised issue configurations and their rivals.In any case, the moments when re-orchestration becomes apparent, and disturbing for something or someone, may be the moments in which hidden forms of politics and political work become visible and even contestable.Learning to what extent established policymaking practices 'pass the test', and may end up to limit generation and application of co-produced knowledge, also allows a critical examination of the transformative capacities of coproduction and its outcomes.