ABSTRACT:
Participatory and co-creation approaches are widely promoted in public health, yet many university–community partnerships remain short-lived, project-bound, and difficult to sustain. While policy and scholarship emphasise community participation, less attention is given to how partnerships are held, negotiated, and maintained over time in real-world settings. This roundtable creates space for critical reflection on sustaining co-creation as an ongoing public health practice, drawing on a long-term university–community partnership in Bishop Lavis, South Africa. The roundtable is structured as a facilitated dialogue bringing together academic, community, and practice perspectives. A brief framing input introduces the Bishop Lavis partnership and traces its evolution from discrete engagement activities toward a more sustained co-creation platform supporting community-led wellness initiatives. Roundtable contributors then offer short reflective inputs on their experiences of sustaining participatory partnerships, focusing on issues such as continuity, roles and responsibilities, institutional alignment, and shared ownership. Audience participation is actively encouraged through guided discussion prompts to surface cross-context learning. The roundtable will generate shared insights into the practical conditions that enable or constrain sustained co-creation in public health. Through dialogue, participants will identify common tensions, adaptive strategies, and relational practices that support continuity beyond individual projects or events. The session will foreground experiential learning rather than formal outcomes, emphasising what has been learned through long-term partnership practice. By centring dialogue and multiple perspectives, this roundtable moves beyond idealised accounts of participation to examine what it takes to sustain co-creation over time. The session offers transferable insights for public health practitioners, researchers, policymakers, and community partners seeking to embed participatory approaches within everyday public health practice.