Research on recognising and rewarding stakeholder engagement projects
On behalf of the Open Science Programme at Utrecht University, Wouter Boon, Madelijn Strick, and Merel Mattheij developed a typology of stakeholder engagement projects at Utrecht University and the goals pursued in these projects. They aimed to identify criteria for recognising and rewarding stakeholder engagement.
New developments in recognition and rewards provide supervisors with the opportunity to assess the skills and performance of employees in stakeholder engagement as part of their workload. Criteria are needed that do justice to the variety of different stakeholder engagement projects and the goals they pursue. Additionally, applying these criteria should be manageable within the academic assessment cycle.
As part of the study, the project leaders of 46 prominent stakeholder engagement projects at Utrecht University completed a questionnaire. Firstly, the project leaders indicated how they would categorise their project. They could choose from a list of possibilities, such as a research consortium, hub, or service function. Then, they selected the criteria they use to assess their project. They chose from a list of quality indicators derived from the scientific literature on stakeholder engagement and responsible research and innovation.
The results show – perhaps not surprisingly – that the most common type of stakeholder engagement project is the research consortium; a form in which societal parties are involved in setting agendas and guiding research. Hubs and observatories are also common, where academics and societal partners work together on agenda-setting (hubs) and collecting, analysing, interpreting, and exhibiting data (observatories). Less common are other forms of collaboration such as a service function or training setting.
The quality criteria proposed by the respondents reveal include the degree of inclusivity, participation, and scientific output: how many participants have been involved? How many publications has the project produced? However, other quality criteria remain underemphasised, such as reflection and learning, and – more generally – criteria pertaining to the process of stakeholder engagement. One reason for this may be that this ‘warm side’ of contact is harder to measure and requires personal and close contact.
Through their research, the researchers aim to increase awareness of the diversity of engagement forms and quality criteria. The results can be used, among other things, to develop a tool with which employees can make their performance in stakeholder engagement visible to colleagues, supervisors, and funders in a practical and structured manner, and to identify areas for improvement. Developing such a tool requires further research.
Detailed information about the background, design, and results of the research can be found in the long read.