Co-creative forms and arenas for knowledge and innovation development have increasingly been promoted and established during the last decade, where researchers and stakeholders jointly identify, explore and solve urgent societal issues. These forms and arenas include infrastructures (e.g. Innovation Platforms, University-Society Partnerships), lab formats (e.g. Living Labs, Design Labs, Policy Labs, Urban Labs), dialogue concepts (e.g. Science Shops, AIMday) and methodologies (e.g. Future Workshops, Empowering Dialogues, Research Circles). Drawing on participatory and emancipatory traditions in gender studies, design studies, working-life studies and science of education, these co-creative forms and arenas generally aspire to improve societal and scientific relevance, impact, legitimacy and validity in research and innovation. Research and innovation policies in Sweden and the EU further such initiatives, as part of policy agendas for sustained growth and welfare. The European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) is currently funding two parallel processes, aiming to establish platforms for academia-industry co-creation in two Swedish regions: Genusakademin in Värmland and Gender Smart Arena in Norrbotten. Both platforms focus on joint knowledge production and innovation development for sustainable gender equality, involving gender researchers from the local universities – Karlstad University and Luleå University of Technology – and industrial companies in male-dominated industries, e.g. ICT, transports, steels and foods. This study investigates the transformative potential of these platforms, in relation to social norms and patterns in the involved organizations and their surrounding society. The main research question concerns how far the re-thinking of established knowledge and innovation regimes may extend, when gender researchers with participatory and emancipatory agendas partner up with commercial, industrial companies, as part of a growth-focused ERDF project. This question is addressed through a qualitative, abductive analysis of data from interviews, participatory observations and document studies carried out in both projects during 2018-2019.