Imagine a well-established family of adults planning a big family reunion abroad, fantastic right? Everyone has their own ideas about where to go, what to do, and how to get there to have an enjoyable vacation. How can you bring all these voices together to plan the ultimate trip that satisfies everyone's desires?

One way to do it, and often the most effective way, is by incorporating relevant principles or qualities such as open communication, inclusivity, collaboration, feedback mechanism, negotiation, and compromise, as well as adaptability in the decision-making process.^1,2,3,4

This approach to problem-solving exemplifies what stakeholder engagement is all about. From an academic standpoint, the phrase "stakeholder engagement" can be a debatable concept encompassing a wide range of practices that vary depending on the context. In the realm of natural resource management and environmental problem-solving, stakeholder engagement entails involving stakeholders in planning or decision-making processes to blend their insights and principles with the specialized knowledge and objectives of a specific project.⁵ and in this context, Stakeholders will mean, individuals, groups or organizations who can affect, or will be affected by, the outcome of a project, management, policy or scheme⁶ and from a research viewpoint, these are those who are affected by the environmental problem being researched and those in the power to do something about it.

Who or what constitutes stakeholders can be very project-specific as they may include people, but also groups, neighborhoods, organizations, institutions, and societies. When identified and defined for a project through detailed stakeholder analysis, they play a vital role in helping to actualize project outcomes that reflect the collective interests and preferences of a group otherwise known as co-production.

In our class discussion on stakeholder engagement and co-production for the Science for Environmental Management. We delved deep into this concept, looking at the theory and practice of involving stakeholders in environmental problem-solving. Colleagues shared interesting insights about the different levels of engagement, from simply informing stakeholders to empowering them to act. By involving stakeholders early in the life of a project we can tap into their knowledge, expertise, and lived experiences of a diverse group of stakeholders. This will help to enhance the science production process and co-produce more holistic and effective solutions with better outcomes.

One key takeaway from this discussion was that while stakeholder engagement in environmental research can be a powerful tool for driving positive change, developing an understanding of who, how, and when to engage, as well as the extent of such engagement through a detailed stakeholder analysis at the planning phase of a project, can be critical. This ensures that a desirable outcome is achieved from the stakeholder engagement.

This is particularly true because stakeholder engagement with its associated challenges (e.g. time, resources, appropriate skill sets etc.), can turn out to be a two-edged sword that can make or mar the project if not properly done as seen too often in poorly developed projects and even in our daily lives such as in the aforementioned family reunion scenario, the vacation may very well not see the light of day if stakeholder engagement fails!

To overcome this challenge, a recommended best practice requires that stakeholder engagement at the very least is matched with the level of the problem complexity (e.g. simple, complicated, and complex), and this brings to mind the concepts of single-disciplinary, multi-disciplinary, interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary approaches to environmental problem-solving. While a single-disciplinary approach may very well suffice for simple issues, as complexity rises from complicated to complex, a multidisciplinary or interdisciplinary approach becomes necessary, with complex problems often requiring a transdisciplinary approach.

All these approaches to problem-solving require some level of stakeholder engagement. Bringing back points touched on in class, the consensus is that effective stakeholder engagement at its full scale is foundational to the transdisciplinary approach. This is because this process of transdisciplinary approach, regardless of the name you call it – whether holistic, actionable science, engaged scholarship etc., goes beyond traditional disciplinary boundaries. It, brings together experts from diverse fields – think scientists, policymakers, community leaders, and more to tackle complex environmental problems.

This transdisciplinary approach to problem-solving is crucial to effectively addressing many of our modern-day (people-oriented) environmental problems and socioeconomic issues. These issues have implications for environmental management, including global sea level rise, invasive species, food security, clean water provisions, and sanitation, among others. Notably a common descriptor across these problem sets can be likened to puzzles with pieces scattered across different rooms, and any successful attempt at solving such a puzzle must first bring all those pieces together in one place, where everyone can see the big picture and work together in a transdisciplinary manner and co-create the common desired solution.

Effective stakeholder engagement in transdisciplinary research does not come cheap and doesn’t just happen by chance – it takes careful planning and preparation. In our discussion, we emphasized the importance of setting clear goals, securing funding, and building strong partnerships with stakeholders from the outset. By investing time and resources in planning, we can lay the groundwork for successful collaboration during implementation and ensure that everyone is on the same page from day one.

Finally, the transdisciplinary science process must integrate measures to track progress and continuously evaluate the success of the project. This is as crucial as the planning and implementation phases. By collecting data, soliciting feedback, and monitoring progress, we can continuously improve our efforts and ensure that we're making a real difference.

References

1. Schmidt, L., Falk, T., Siegmund-Schultze, M and Spangenberg, J.H (2020). The Objectives of Stakeholder Involvement in Transdisciplinary Research. A Conceptual Framework for a Reflective and Reflexive Practise, Ecological Economics, Volume 176: 106751, ISSN 0921-8009, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2020.106751
2. Boaz, A., Hanney, S., Borst, R, O’Shea, A, Kok, M (2018). How to engage stakeholders in research: design principles to support improvement, Health Research Policy and Systems 16:60 https://doi.org/10.1186/s12961-018-0337-6
3. Association for Project Management (2024). 10 key principles of stakeholder engagement https://www.apm.org.uk/resources/find-a-resource/stakeholder-engagement/stakeholder-engagement-key-principles/ Accessed 02/26/2024
4. Dennilson, B. (2017). Transdisciplinary literacy: Seven principles that help define transdisciplinary research https://ian.umces.edu/blog/transdisciplinary-literacy-seven-principles-that-help-define-transdisciplinary-research/ Accessed 02/26/2024
5. Talley, J. L., Schneider, J., and Lindquist, E. (2016). A simplified approach to stakeholder engagement in natural resource management: the Five-Feature Framework. Ecology and Society, 21(4). http://www.jstor.org/stable/26270020
6. Freeman, R. E. (1999). Divergent stakeholder theory. Academy of Management Review 24(2):233–236. http://dx.doi.org/10.5465/ amr.1999.1893932