Table 1 Differences and similarities between co-design, co-production, and co-creation

Stakeholder involvement

Service users have opportunities to be involved in the beginning for identifying the problem, designing solutions, and modifying the solutions after prototyping or selecting the best from the list of alternatives.

Active, equal and reciprocal relationship

Service users’ involvement is relatively passive and organizational or expert-centric.

Passive role and rely on contextual setting and resources

User-centric and experience-centric or likely to be based on experience

Very active and provide continuous inputs to service providers for value creation

Common methods of stakeholder engagements

Social learning, network mapping, journey mapping, reflexive practice, interviews, group discussion, workshop, survey, nominal group technique, etc.

Interviews, group discussion, workshop, patient and public involvement, Delphi technique, nominal group technique, etc.

Interviews, group discussion, workshop, patient and public involvement, social learning, etc.

Key principles

Inclusiveness, genuine participation, development-oriented, ownership and power sharing, responsiveness, iterative process, outcome-focused

Equality, diversity, building on people’s capabilities; reciprocal relationships; shared cultured

Inspire to participate; trust on process, lead the change, people first, shared results, connect creativity, pertinent partners, continued development

Intended outputs

Identify the problem, develop, and prototype solutions

Implement the co-design/proposed solutions

Design, implement and evaluate the solution, and value creation of the co-designed product or service

Creative levels

Planning, development and designing

Production and scalability

Adopting and using or consumption