Thinking Big and Thinking Small: A Conceptual Framework for Best Practices in Community and Stakeholder Engagement in Food, Energy, and Water Systems

Abstract

Community and stakeholder engagement is increasingly recognized as essential to science at the nexus of food, energy, and water systems (FEWS) to address complex issues surrounding food and energy production and water provision for society. Yet no comprehensive framework exists for supporting best practices in community and stakeholder engagement for FEWS. A review and meta-synthesis were undertaken of a broad range of existing models, frameworks, and toolkits for community and stakeholder engagement. A framework is proposed that comprises situational awareness of the FEWS place or problem, creation of a suitable culture for engagement, focus on power-sharing in the engagement process, co-ownership, co-generation of knowledge and outcomes, the technical process of integration, the monitoring processes of reflective and reflexive experiences, and formative evaluation. The framework is discussed as a scaffolding for supporting the development and application of best practices in community and stakeholder engagement in ways that are arguably essential for sound FEWS science and sustainable management.

Evaluating stakeholder engagement in collaborative research: co-producing knowledge for climate resilience

“…Robust systematic knowledge about engagement processes and outcomes is needed so that funding agencies, stakeholders, and researchers avoid wasting resources and potentially damaging relationships crucial to managing complex socio-environmental problems (Eaton et al 2022 , 2021 ). Recent analyses of stakeholder engagement in collaborative research suggest that key factors underlying success include researchers having a clear understanding of who, why, when, and how to engage (Muhar and Penker 2018 , p. 6)-factors that should be determined by the research question(s), political context of the research problem, and the available time, resources, and capacities of the science team (Kliskey et al 2021 ; Harvey et al 2019 ; Klink et al 2017 ). Additionally, while iterative engagement is thought to increase knowledge co-production and science utility (Lemos and Morehouse 2005 ), the optimal number of iterations, or engagement modality, remains less well understood (Eaton et al 2021 ; Church et al 2021 ; Bremer et al 2019 ), and evaluations of outcomes such as increased adaptive capacity remain mixed (Mach et al 2020 ; Church et al 2022 ).…”

Fostering Responsible Innovation through Stakeholder Engagement: Case Study of North Carolina Sweetpotato Stakeholders

“…It is increasingly recognized that stakeholder and community engagement are essential to developing new food and agriculture technologies [1]. Benefits of stakeholder engagement within agrifood technology development include responding to stakeholder and community member needs, incorporating diverse perspectives, improving transparency, co-creating knowledge and associated outcomes, improving technology adoption rates, and developing more sustainable agrifood technology solutions [1,2].…”

“…Benefits of stakeholder engagement within agrifood technology development include responding to stakeholder and community member needs, incorporating diverse perspectives, improving transparency, co-creating knowledge and associated outcomes, improving technology adoption rates, and developing more sustainable agrifood technology solutions [1,2]. In this work, we define stakeholders as individuals who are directly impacted by a project and/or generated outcome(s), often with decision-making abilities, and community members as individuals whose values and priorities need to be considered but do not have direct decision-making abilities [1]. Current scholarship in sustainability and innovation also recognize the dynamic and integral connections between social, technical, and ecological processes [2].…”

“…Given that food and agriculture systems tend to be contextually-based with local actors and conditions often playing significant roles, stakeholder engagement within agrifood systems need to be tailored to account for these contextual circumstances [1]. This is because agricultural research on farming systems has revealed vast degrees of diversity and complexity of farming practices.…”

Pandemic-era Participation in Public Lands Governance: Lessons From the USDA Forest Service

“…Participation is a vital component of well-functioning societies, as evidenced by its presence in the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals: SDG 16 aims to, among other things, "Ensure responsive, inclusive, participatory, and representative decision-making at all levels, " (UN General Assembly, 2015). Numerous approaches can be used to achieve engagement goals ranging from consulting with stakeholders to empowerment or co-ownership (Kliskey et al, 2021), but all require that stakeholders have access, standing, and some degree of influence in the process (Senecah, 2004). Access is the opportunity to not only participate in the process but also "to access sufficient and appropriate support, for instance, education, information, so that [one] can understand the process in an informed, active capacity, not as a reactionary, " (Senecah, 2004, p. 23).…”