Phase 1 : Pre-engagement | ePLANETe Platform

Submitted by Ananda Rohn on Fri, 08/22/2025 - 12:28

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Effective stakeholder engagement requires thorough advance preparation. With increasing demands on stakeholders’ time, it is important to clearly define why and how people are being asked to participate. Building trust through early communication and involving community leaders helps create deeper engagement.

Organizers should conduct stakeholder mapping early in the process to ensure inclusiveness and identify potential barriers to engagement. This phase is about preparing for stakeholder engagement, including identifying relevant stakeholders, identifying tasks and purpose of engagement activities, and ensuring a common understanding of needs and opportunities for engagement in the project.

Below are three main goals for this phase, including activities and outputs to achieve them.

Resources

Brugha, R. and Z. Varvasovsky (2000) Stakeholder analysis: a review. Health Policy and Planning 15, pp. 239–246.

Caspari, T. et al. (2014). RECARE WP4 / WP5 Project Guidelines Stakeholder Workshop 1: Participatory identification of measures to combat soil threats in Europe. https://www.isric.org/sites/default/files/Guideline_RECARE_SH_Workshop_2_final%20post.pdf

Durham, E., Baker, H., Smith, M., Moore, E. & Morgan, V. (2014). The BiodivERsA Stakeholder Engagement Handbook. BiodivERsA, Paris. https://www.biodiversa.eu/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/stakeholder-engagement-handbook.pdf

Nesheim, I. & Enge, C. (2022). Meaningful engagement is important for effective co-creation of knowledge. News update. OPTAIN. https://www.optain.eu/news/meaningful-engagement-important-effective-co-creation-knowledge

OECD (2022), OECD Guidelines for Citizen Participation Processes, OECD Public Governance Reviews, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/f765caf6-en

Reed, M. S. (2008). Stakeholder participation for environmental management: A literature review. Biological Conservation, 141(10), 2417–2431. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2008.07.014

Reed, M. S., Graves, A., Dandy, N., Posthumus, H., Hubacek, K., Morris, J., Prell, C., Quinn, C. H., & Stringer, L. C. (2009). Who’s in and why? A typology of stakeholder analysis methods for natural resource management. Journal of Environmental Management, 90(5), 1933–1949. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2009.01.001

Reed, M. S., Vella, S., Challies, E., de Vente, J., Frewer, L., Hohenwallner-Ries, D., Huber, T., Neumann, R. K., Oughton, E. A., Sidoli del Ceno, J., & van Delden, H. (2018). A theory of participation: What makes stakeholder and public engagement in environmental management work? Restoration Ecology, 26(S1), S7–S17. https://doi.org/10.1111/rec.12541

Van den brink, C., De Vries, A., Nesheim, I. (2021). Workshop and workshop report on how to establish and nurture MARG for constructive engagement in water - agriculture – environmental conflict related issues. Deliverable D1.2 Horizon 2020 OPTAIN Project, Grant agreement No. 862756. https://www.optain.eu/sites/default/files/delivrables/OPTAIN%20D1.2%20-%20Workshop%20and%20workshop%20report.pdf

Van den Brink, C., De Vries, A., Nesheim, I., Enge, C. (2021). Stakeholder mapping report, covering the case studies. Deliverable D1.1 EU Horizon 2020 OPTAIN Project, Grant agreement No. 862756. https://www.optain.eu/sites/default/files/delivrables/OPTAIN%20D1.1%20-%20Stakeholder%20mapping%20report%20final_revised_2022_0.pdf

🔹 Goal 1a: Common understanding and learning around stakeholder engagement

It is key that all team members understand why and how to engage stakeholders from the beginning. In larger projects with several different stakeholder platforms, a common understanding of different terms and engagement activities is essential. This will create a basis for collaboration, ensure a similar approach in different case studies and reduce the risk of misunderstandings. It is important that all project members have reflected on how stakeholder engagement relates to their work, including when and how stakeholders will be involved in different tasks.

Suggested activities and outputs:

Common terminology for stakeholder categories and activities. Developing a project glossary, guidelines or template for logging activities and mapping stakeholders can contribute to this. Similarly, providing resources or readings on the principles of stakeholder engagement can be useful.
Project workshop on stakeholder engagement. Organizing an internal workshop for project members on how to work with stakeholders and facilitate engagement is an effective way of getting a better understanding of opportunities and challenges, as well as developing a common vocabulary and understanding from the start.
General project engagement plan. Depending on the project plan and activities, each work package and responsible team members should reflect on when and why stakeholders will be included throughout the project and sketch out an overarching ‘engagement schedule’. This way, different activities can be aligned, and stakeholder contact can be more effective.

How it was done in OPTAIN

Project workshops: Before engagement activities in the project started, work package 1 organized two digital workshops with the purpose of informing the case study leaders on how to establish and nurture the multi-actor reference groups (MARG). Not all case study leaders had much experience with stakeholder engagement from before.

The workshops aimed to present important issues to be considered when organizing the NARG, explain the theory, and suggest how to approach these issues in practice. The case study leaders also engaged in group discussions to help them think about the status of their stakeholder group and potential challenges.

Learn more about the organization of these internal workshops to prepare for stakeholder engagement in the report: D1.2 Workshop and workshop report on how to establish and nurture MARG for constructive engagement in water - agriculture – environmental conflict related issues

General engagement schedule: In the internal workshops, a calendar for the whole duration of the project was presented. This common document showed a preliminary schedule for different activities involving stakeholders, and how the activities related to other tasks of the project. This helped case study leaders prepare and better understand the purpose of engagement in different phases of the work. The calendar was regularly updated throughout the project.

To see an example of a schedule, the engagement calendar is included on page 12 of this report.

Case study leader meetings: To ensure communication and understanding between the case study leaders responsible for stakeholder engagement in the different case studies, work package 1 arranged regular digital meetings approximately every 6 weeks. This worked as a platform for providing information and discussing upcoming tasks, as well as to facilitate communication directly between the cases. This dialogue contributed to common understanding and learning about stakeholder engagement both in the initial planning phase and throughout the project.

🔹 Goal 1b: Operationalize meaningful engagement

To ensure effective and meaningful engagement, it is key to define what this means and how to achieve it in the context of a specific project. This depends on the purpose and goals of the engagement, but there can also be different purposes and modes of engagement in different phases and tasks within the same project. In the planning phase, it is important to define what successful stakeholder engagement looks like and what is needed to achieve the aims of the engagement. Taking stakeholders’ perspective and rights into account, it is also key to define ethics and a plan for privacy protection.

Suggested activities and outputs:

Framework for nurturing engagement. Establishing a framework that defines successful engagement in the project and how to achieve this, can help to ensure that the engagement is experienced as useful for both stakeholders and researchers.
Benchmarks and indicators for stakeholder engagement. Tangible benchmarks and indicators will further specify what is needed for a fair, inclusive and effective engagement process. It can guide the planning of engagement and enables evaluation to ensure the quality of stakeholder contact and activities.
Ethics and privacy protection plan. A data management plan should be developed at an early stage of the project. To ensure informed consent of all engaged stakeholders, information sheets and consent forms are needed.

How it was done in OPTAIN

Framework for nurturing engagement: In OPTAIN, making engagement meaningful for both stakeholders and researchers build on three pillars: relevance, trust and added value. These concepts are operationalized as follows:

Relevance - whether the approach is perceived by the actors as useful and needed for addressing environmental challenges. In the OPTAIN context, the relevance of natural small water retention measures (NSWRMs) was monitored for the key challenges flood, drought, nutrient runoff, and erosion.
Trust - whether the actors expect and experience that their voice is heard and that the project will help solve their environmental challenges. For stakeholder trust entails that the researchers will consider their input into the modelling and analytical work, and that the project will be able to contribute to solving the environmental challenges.
Added value - whether individual participants receive benefits from engaging. Such benefits can be access to information, learning about research on effective measures, meeting other farmers, meeting experts and authorities, networking.

Benchmarks for stakeholder engagement: These benchmarks were defined in OPTAIN by building on a comprehensive list of criteria proposed by Rowe and Frewer (2000, 2013). The framework consists of nine criteria defined and adjusted to the OPTAIN project context:

Representativeness (a broad representative sample of affected actors): The public participants should comprise a broad representative sample of the population of the affected public. It is accounted for by making sure that stakeholders from the different governance levels, and from the relevant sectors, mainly water management, agriculture, and nature conservation are represented.
Independence (unbiased process):The participation process should be conducted in an independent, unbiased way.
Early involvement (as early as possible): The public should be involved as early as possible in the process as soon as value judgments become salient.
Influence (outputs should have genuine impact): The output of the procedure should have a genuine impact on policy. Stakeholders should also be invited to provide knowledge, inputs and feedback on the research approaches that will enable influence on the outcomes of the project.
Transparency (no hidden agenda and transparent process): The process should be transparent so that the public can see what is going on and how decisions are being made. Information about the project should be available in the native language, case study specific leaflets, information sheet, consent form for engagement. Agenda for meetings is shared upfront, and minutes are shared post events.
Task definition (clearly defined activities): The nature and scope of the participation task should be clearly defined. Prior to engagement events, protocols and agendas should be developed across the cases and shared. Furthermore, before each MARG workshop a protocol should be developed specifying tasks and the process for engagement.
Structured decision making (displaying the decision-making process): Participation exercises should use/provide appropriate mechanisms for structuring and displaying the decision-making process. Decision making is done by the research groups. reference to grant description. The project has an advisory and ethical board.
Resource accessibility (access to resources and time): Public participants should have access to the appropriate resources to enable them to successfully fulfill their brief. The project considers resource accessibility by adapting to the availability of stakeholders, not for stakeholders to adapt to the project. It includes access to human resources, a limiting factor, this is considered by being respectful to stakeholders’ time constraints.
Cost-effectiveness (cost effective procedure): The procedure should in some sense be cost-effective. It should be considered to facilitate hybrid meetings so that stakeholders who would have too high travel costs can participate digitally, or to approach some stakeholders bilaterally.

Ethics and privacy protection plan: When preparing for stakeholder engagement in OPTAIN the ethics considerations were based on the European Commission’s guidelines to ethics and data protection. This was presented to the case study leaders during the internal workshops to prepare for stakeholder engagement. Among the principles for ensuring data protection in OPTAIN was minimizing the collection of personal data, pseudonymization of personal data, encryption key files, appropriate data storage. Case study leaders were required to inform stakeholders about GDPR requirements and ask for written consent to participate.

Illustration of the activities involving processing of personal data in OPTAIN (source: D1.2 Workshop and workshop report on how to establish and nurture MARG for constructive engagement in water - agriculture – environmental conflict related issues)[CE2]

🔹 Goal 1c: Identify and categorize stakeholders

The purpose of mapping stakeholders is to identify possible and relevant actors to involve. Stakeholder analysis is the systematic identification, evaluation, and prioritization of everyone who can influence, or has an interest in, a project. To ensure representativeness and minimizing conflict, it can be useful to map what interests the different actors have and how they relate to each other.

The approach for mapping stakeholders will be context dependent, and can include a combination of methods, including literature review, a review of relevant websites, and snowball identification based on expert interviews. It is often an iterative process where additional stakeholders are included during the project. More stakeholders can be identified than those to be directly involved. For example, some participants will be more actively engaged, forming an “inner circle”. Others are involved or informed more occasionally according to their interest and availability.

Suggested activities and outputs:

Stakeholder mapping. This will provide an overview of key stakeholders to engage with and should include information on the different stakeholders’ roles and who they represent, as well as the basis for involving them. More relevant stakeholders are likely to appear during the project period.
Initial contact plan. The various stakeholders may be contacted as part of the mapping exercise or later during the project. Either way a plan for how and when to contact the different stakeholders, including an overview of their contact information and responses, is useful to ensure an effective approach. Make sure that the handling of such information is in line with the data management plan.

Examples of guiding questions to identify and categorize stakeholders:

Who are the key actors at local, regional, national and EU levels?
What roles do they play and how much influence do they hold?
Are there any potential conflicts between stakeholder groups to consider?

How it was done in OPTAIN

Stakeholder mapping: The identification of potential stakeholders in each OPTAIN case study was coordinated by work package 1 and conducted prior to the engagement activities in the project. Applying a top-down approach, the different case study leaders were responsible for identifying stakeholders and categorizing them according to pre-defined categories.

The need for case study leaders to consider the intended engagement role for stakeholders in the project research cycle was emphasized when identifying and prioritizing stakeholders for involvement. It was expected that the number of stakeholders involved in each case study would increase during the project period and that the stakeholders first identified for participation in the MARGs may change.

The protocol for stakeholder mapping in OPTAIN included:

an overview of the types of stakeholders and suggested categories (farmer, private company, environmental authority, agriculture authority, politician, NGO, other)
level (local, regional, national)
potential reasons to involve the stakeholder linked to different tasks and parts of the project (such as local knowledge, expert knowledge, policy and learning environment)
potential stakeholder benefits of participating
interest of the stakeholder in the project and topics (high, medium, low)
planned level of engagement (inform, consult, involve)
whether the stakeholder was intended to be in the inner or outer circle of the MARG

The number of stakeholders identified as relevant as members in the respective case study MARGs varied from 10 to 50 stakeholders.The identified stakeholders were categorised across different levels of governance, local, regional and national. Some case studies also referred to combinations of levels.

Learn more about the organization of these internal workshops to prepare for stakeholder engagement in the report: D1.1: Stakeholder mapping report, covering the case studies

Initial contact plan: In the OPTAIN project, each case study was responsible for contacting their stakeholders to establish the MARG. As the context and level of previous knowledge and contact with stakeholders varied between the respective cases, a flexible approach was needed. This was presented and discussed during the internal workshops on stakeholder engagement for cases study leaders in the beginning of the project. In the initial contact with stakeholders, it was advised to:

present the project in a non-academic language
indicate the type and extent of engagement requested
indicate the potential benefits of involvement for stakeholders
seek advice and assistance from an intermediate contact person, such as a farmers’ advisor, if needed
tailor emails and communication to the receiver
consider different communication types such as phone, social media and so on according to the type of stakeholder
ask for permission to send information and invite to activities
ensure informed consent through information sheets and consent forms

Learn more about the approach to initial stakeholder contact in OPTAIN in the report: D1.2 Workshop and workshop report on how to establish and nurture MARG for constructive engagement in water - agriculture – environmental conflict related issues

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