Towards washing the baby in the bathwater? – commentary to Refstie

As a response to Hilde Refstie’s research paper ‘Reconfiguring research relevance – steps towards salvaging the radical potential of the co-productive turn in searching for sustainable solutions’, in this commentary I reflect on some of the issues that I consider key elements in her timely and important argument. I mainly pay attention to how she lays out the key problems in co-creative research in our fast-paced academia that meets the increasing demands for relevance coming from the policymaking for sustainability. Yet, Refstie’s paper also states that we do not necessarily have to throw out the baby with the bathwater. I end with some remarks on where Refstie’s argument for rescuing the critical potential of co-creative research meets its understandable limits.