We all know and recognize the current limitations of centralised policy-making in relation to communities and diverse contexts. There is a problematic compartmentalisation in governance today, as well as many challenges to effectively combining bottom-up and top-down processes in policy making through evolving power relationships. We all share common views about ethical partnerships and the importance of participation in policy making to give voice to those who are not heard but implicated by these policies. We contend that past failures and shortcomings of national and multilateral governance arise from a lack of up-to-date knowledge of the diverse contexts at each level of policy practice and insufficient methods of stakeholder participation in policy development. Co-creation is an important way forward for reconceived modes of democratic governance that prioritise legitimacy and accountability in the eyes of citizens. But how to do this? This hub would allow us to join forces across contexts and disciplines to work on models and practices of co-creating policies for sustainability, combining different profiles, different fields, different experiences.

Overall, this Hub is important to consider cross-cutting issues and topics, going further than regional issues. It will give us the opportunity to continue having an impact on the communities, for whom we work, but at a different, higher level, considering different stakeholders and different levels of government. To sum up, this hub as an opportunity to learn across geographies about the contextualized processes of developing, institutionalising, implementing and evaluating sound policy, and particularly to reduce the power inequalities that come into play throughout the whole process.

Co-creation practices in research, policy, and development programmes are slowly growing and strongly needed to encourage more inclusive, responsive and transformative governance and policy-making, and to improve the production of useful research for social justice and global development. It is about interrogating Global North practices and processes as engagement in and with the Global South. We must all learn from each other through symmetrical relationships, translated in governance and policy-making frameworks. Such a participatory view of governance and policy-making requires diverse characteristics in order to transform these practices and processes. It is thus important in this perspective, when researchers, decision-makers and practitioners come together, to critically engage with contexts, to redress evidence hierarchies, to take an adaptative approach responsive to context, to respect diversity of knowledge and skills, to commit to transparency, to invest in relationships, and to keep learning.