How do you avoid the pitfalls?
The boss plays the boss. As a manager, you have opportunities to make space. You can open a door. Or keep it closed if the risks are too high. But if nobody uses the open door, no cocreation will occur. Look for people with initiatives that fit what you see as desirable change. And then negotiate conditions that create space for development (see development phase - initiative spiral).
The financier is the boss. As a funder, you have goals and criteria for spending money. If these are too product oriented, you leave no room for creativity and surprises to the project partners, and nothing new is created. Moreover, you turn initiators into suppliers, and the energy disappears from the activity. Determine what questions you want answered at the end of the funding. Then negotiate the whole set of research questions with the initiators and how they will be accountable for the process.
The free actor is too free. Those who conceive of the free actor as limitless do not become a free actor. It is a position you take because you believe the network needs it at that moment. But the position must also be granted to you. And that happens when others trust you to serve the network.