The ontology of science-policy-practice interface and related interventions that ensure evidence-use in social, economic and environmental policy, has led to the emergence of a new cadre of bridging agents and organizations. Public policy making involves multiple actors and sources of evidence through collaborative partnerships, inclusive governance and engaged research. However, effective strategies to positively influence the demand space in low-and-middle-income countries remains a challenge. The objective of the session is to explore how coproduction, as a strategic form of knowledge brokering, enhances capacity of the state to use evidence in policy making. Coproduction theory is assessed against practice, using South Africa (SA) as a case study. A two-pronged research design was adopted. A qualitative systematic review of 243 studies was undertaken to generate theoretical constructs on coproduction. Secondly, an embedded multiple case-study design included five in-depth cases to assess the institutional context for coproduction practice. Data sources were document reviews of practice cases and thirty one interviews with policy makers, public officials, managers, researchers and development partners. Emergent themes from the review on coproduction reveal that the origin, motivation and drivers of coproduction encompass ‘state-society’ and ‘science-society’ relations, demonstrating pluralistic approaches to knowledge production, management and translation, inherent in public policy making. In SA, bureaucratic culture, weak management of public knowledge resources and neglect of the relational function of government, largely hinders coproduction practice. The challenge of 'methodological diversity' and pluralism was not adequately addressed by current evidence-use interventions. Findings show how coproduction strategies strengthen the relational function of government, addresses knowledge governance through inclusivity, advances the think-tank role of government in public policy making, creates public value in the generation of knowledge assets and builds public trust. The study concludes that coherence is the implicit knowledge constitutive arrangement behind coproduction and that there is a reciprocal relationship between coproduction and state capacity. Coproduction in the public sector is fundamentally the study of networked relationships, patterns, levels of organization and management of complex social systems, but a scientific enigma. Substantive and methodological theories are critical for the integration of multi-sectoral, multi-stakeholder and multiple sources of evidence for public policy making.