How to engage stakeholders in research: design principles to support improvement

Abstract

BackgroundClosing the gap between research production and research use is a key challenge for the health research system. Stakeholder engagement is being increasingly promoted across the board by health research funding organisations, and indeed by many researchers themselves, as an important pathway to achieving impact. This opinion piece draws on a study of stakeholder engagement in research and a systematic literature search conducted as part of the study.Main bodyThis paper provides a short conceptualisation of stakeholder engagement, followed by ‘design principles’ that we put forward based on a combination of existing literature and new empirical insights from our recently completed longitudinal study of stakeholder engagement. The design principles for stakeholder engagement are organised into three groups, namely organisational, values and practices. The organisational principles are to clarify the objectives of stakeholder engagement; embed stakeholder engagement in a framework or model of research use; identify the necessary resources for stakeholder engagement; put in place plans for organisational learning and rewarding of effective stakeholder engagement; and to recognise that some stakeholders have the potential to play a key role. The principles relating to values are to foster shared commitment to the values and objectives of stakeholder engagement in the project team; share understanding that stakeholder engagement is often about more than individuals; encourage individual stakeholders and their organisations to value engagement; recognise potential tension between productivity and inclusion; and to generate a shared commitment to sustained and continuous stakeholder engagement. Finally, in terms of practices, the principles suggest that it is important to plan stakeholder engagement activity as part of the research programme of work; build flexibility within the research process to accommodate engagement and the outcomes of engagement; consider how input from stakeholders can be gathered systematically to meet objectives; consider how input from stakeholders can be collated, analysed and used; and to recognise that identification and involvement of stakeholders is an iterative and ongoing process.ConclusionIt is anticipated that the principles will be useful in planning stakeholder engagement activity within research programmes and in monitoring and evaluating stakeholder engagement. A next step will be to address the remaining gap in the stakeholder engagement literature concerned with how we assess the impact of stakeholder engagement on research use.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1186/s12961-018-0337-6) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Laying the groundwork: Building relationships for public and patient involvement in pre‐clinical paediatric research

“…Mutual benefit is a core principle to our PPI initiative and a key concept in the relationship building necessary for successful co‐working relationships, including PPI . Thus, sharing our knowledge and expertise in research skills directly with our attendees had the dual benefit of reinforcing this commitment and building the knowledge base that will be necessary for successful downstream PPI …”

“…Here, we give an example of how we lay the foundations for future PPI in adolescent rheumatology research by hosting a plain English research seminar for adolescents aged 10‐20 living with rheumatic disease and by hosting a workshop introducing the scientific method. By introducing researchers and their research in an informal setting in advance of developing advisory groups and research partnerships, it gives the public the tools to make more informed decisions around involvement in research and aids the researcher in identifying and building their skills necessary to facilitate future involvement …”

From intent to implementation: Factors affecting public involvement in life science research

“…In the total valid response cohort of 110 researchers, 23 different areas of the life sciences were identified as primary research areas ( figure 1A); with a median of 5 respondents per research area (range [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20]. Respondents were overwhelmingly laboratory-based at a university or research institute (n=99 (90.8%); Fig 1B).…”

“…However, many excellent and innovative scientists are lost to science during the long road to tenure [43][44][45]. Engaging stakeholders is beneficial to science and to the translation and use of scientific knowledge [5,9,46] and institutions need to consider the life sciences system as a whole in their efforts to encourage stakeholder engagement and knowledge transfer [45]. Science communication is a critical skill for public involvement.…”

“…Across the life sciences, narrowing the gap between research production and research use is a key challenge. There is increasing evidence that public involvement and stakeholder engagement is key to achieving impact and true provision and use of scientific knowledge for the benefit of society [5][6][7][8][9][10][11].…”