The number and type of collaborations between researchers and stakeholders has increased significantly. This responds to the demand from policymakers, funders, and citizens that researchers should help to tackle important social issues (e.g. climate change, healthy aging). However, there is little knowledge about how collaboration processes are experienced, how we can theoretically conceptualize them, and how in this way we can develop efficient collaboration methods that contribute to solving urgent societal problems. In this meta-ethnography, we gathered relevant knowledge from carefully selected qualitative studies. A title/abstract analysis of 3422 articles from Web of Science and ProQuest led to the interpretative analysis of qualitative data from eight publications. The results of this study show that despite the need for a better understanding of complex collaborative interactions, the differences (or asymmetry) between organizations to which various partners belong hinder efficient collaboration. Bridging figures (brokers) can play an essential role if they succeed in drawing diverse stakeholders out of their organizational context into a new dimension that allows creativity and mutual understanding, but that also allows conflict and distortion. In ideal circumstances, this leads to a quasi-automatic transfer of knowledge between partners that takes place naturally and in both directions (knowledge diffusion).