Opportunity or responsibility? Tracing co-creation in the European policy discourse

Abstract Co-creation seems to be flourishing across innovation policy discourses: The concept suggests that engaging diverse actors throughout innovation processes will unlock new sources of innovation and conduce robust outcomes. While co-creation seems to embrace new and diverse participation opportunities, it is necessary to interrogate how it affects existing notions of public engagement. In this paper, we explore the discursive uptake of co-creation in European innovation policy. Drawing on a qualitative discourse analysis of European Union (EU) publications, we scrutinize the value propositions of co-creation and discuss them in light of the existing public engagement literature. We find that the EU tends to foreground alleged economic benefits of co-creation over questions of social justice. To that effect, it consistently conflates citizens, consumers, and users and blurs the line between self-motivated opportunity and democratic legitimacy. Countering the prevalent co-creation optimism, we propose a more nuanced outlook on co-creation that should prompt further scholarly inquiry.