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Advancing Scholarship and Practice of Stakeholder Engagement in Working Landscapes: 34 Co-Produced Research Opportunities
Citation:
Eaton, W., T. Robertson, J. Arbuckle, K. Brasier, M. Burbach, M. Burnham, S. Church, C. Eberly, G. Hart-Fredeluces, D. Jackson-Smith, A. Rogers, G. Wildermuth, Katherine Canfield, S. Cordova, C. Chatelain, J. Edwards, L. Fowler, Z. Hurst, C. Kirchhoff, M. Manheim, R. Martinez, A. Mook, C. Mullin, L. Murrah-Hanson, C. Onabola, L. Parker, E. Redd, C. Schelly, M. Schoon, W. Sigler, E. Smit, T. van Huysen, L. Verbrugge, AND M. Worosz. Advancing Scholarship and Practice of Stakeholder Engagement in Working Landscapes: 34 Co-Produced Research Opportunities. Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, 2021.
Impact/Purpose:
Complex agri-environmental problems, including nonpoint source pollution and streamflow and aquifer depletion, threaten food production, human health, and ecological integrity. These problems are especially consequential for working landscapes, or spaces where livelihood is inextricably linked with the use and management of land and water resources. Solutions to these problems often require cooperation and participation of large numbers of diverse actors. To build support for these efforts and improve outcomes, policy and practice have increasingly turned to stakeholder engagement processes as a central component of program implementation. Stakeholder engagement, where stakeholders participate in identifying problems and solutions, is believed to build trust and enable the individual and collective behavior changes required to improve agri-environmental outcomes. Although stakeholder engagement is widely used and recommended, scientific research on whether and how, and under what conditions, engagement actually leads to improvements in social, economic, and environmental outcomes remains uncertain. Without improved knowledge of stakeholder engagement processes and associated outcomes, we risk wasting resources, damaging relationships, and ultimately failing to achieve lasting positive social and environmental change. To address this gap, this project’s organizing team sought to build a new international community of researchers and practitioners in order to review current and build new understanding for practice and scholarship of stakeholder engagement through a series of virtual and professionally facilitated workshops.
Description:
This report describes products from the virtual and professionally facilitated Advancing Engagement Workshop Series. Workshops were held between Fall 2020 and Summer 2021 and included participation from over 160 individuals. The goals of these workshops were to (1) foster and build a new diverse network of researchers and practitioners with a shared interest in stakeholder engagement, (2) support the development of new scholarship that addresses pressing knowledge gaps in stakeholder engagement practice research, and to (3) co-produce a future research agenda around stakeholder engagement in working landscapes. It presents 34 research opportunities developed during these workshops.
