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Stakeholder Engagement
BiodivERsA activities in favour of stakeholder engagement all along the research process
BiodivERsA aims to improve cooperation between scientists and stakeholders by establishing best practices for engagement; the BiodivERsA Stakeholder Engagement Handbook is designed to help research project teams to better plan and engage with non-academic stakeholders, including policy makers.
The objective of the Handbook is to provide a framework and selection of tools so that each research consortium can determine which types of stakeholder engagement are the most profitable for their research project.
Why does BiodivERsA promote stakeholder engagement in research projects?
BiodivERsA partners recognise that research on biodiversity and associated ecosystem services addresses cross-cutting subjects and needs to promote interdisciplinarity, integrate a range of actors, demonstrate academic excellence, and deliver a clear societal impact.
In this context, BiodivERsA is promoting both science-society and science-policy interfacing throughout the whole research process, from inception onwards. While academic excellence is a major criterion for evaluating research to be supported in BiodivERsA, successful projects are expected to demonstrate that innovative approaches will be used (from co-design of programmes to promotion of research results) to increase the societal impact of the funded research.
BiodivERsA recognizes that it is particularly challenging for researchers to ensure academic excellence and societal impact at the same time. In particular, it appears that scientists often lack clear frameworks and methodologies when engaging with stakeholders.
In this context, BiodivERsA has developed a Stakeholder Engagement Handbook, providing practical guidance to researchers to better plan and engage with non-academic stakeholders, including policy makers.