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As part of a global trend of improving the societal impact and relevance of science, co-creative platforms for developing new knowledge and innovations are increasingly common in Sweden and internationally (Mauser et al, 2013; Owen et al, 2013; Reypens et al, 2016). This study investigates two Swedish cases – The Gender Academy and Gender Contact Point – in order to scrutinize if, and if so how, the societal impact of gender studies may be reinforced by platforms for academia-society collaboration. Previous studies in the field of social innovation help distinguish mechanisms for organizational and societal transformation in these constellations (Westley et al, 2017; Howaldt et al, 2018). Our study reveals that both platforms engage researchers and stakeholders in innovation processes of joint identification, exploration and solution of societal and organizational challenges, as is common in social innovation. Both struggle, however, to bridge the critical agenda of the researchers and the constructive agendas of the stakeholders. They do this by emphasizing the potential of gender studies to improve organizational competitiveness, innovativeness and attractiveness, on the one hand, while advancing academic knowledge on mechanisms for organizational and societal transformation, on the other.
