TY  - JOUR
A1  - Schoonover, Heather A.
A1  - Gret-Regamey, Adrienne
A1  - Metzger, Marc J.
A1  - Ruiz-Frau, Ana
A1  - Santos-Reis, Margarida
A1  - Scholte, Samantha S. K.
A1  - Walz, Ariane
A1  - Nicholas, Kimberly A.
T1  - Creating space, aligning motivations, and building trust
T2  - Ecology and society : a journal of integrative science for resilience and sustainability
N2  - Ecosystem services inherently involve people, whose values help define the benefits of nature's services. It is thus important for researchers to involve stakeholders in ecosystem services research. However, a simple and practicable framework to guide such engagement, and in particular to help researchers anticipate and consider key issues and challenges, has not been well explored. Here, we use experience from the 12 case studies in the European Operational Potential of Ecosystem Research Applications (OPERAs) project to propose a stakeholder engagement framework comprising three key elements: creating space, aligning motivations, and building trust. We argue that involving stakeholders in research demands thoughtful reflection from the researchers about what kind of space they want to create, including if and how they want to bring different interests together, how much space they want to allow for critical discussion, and whether there is a role for particular stakeholders to serve as conduits between others. In addition, understanding their own motivations—including values, knowledge, goals, and desired benefits—will help researchers decide when and how to involve stakeholders, identify areas of common ground and potential disagreement, frame the project appropriately, set expectations, and ensure each party is able to see benefits of engaging with each other. Finally, building relationships with stakeholders can be difficult but considering the roles of existing relationships, time, approach, reputation, and belonging can help build mutual trust. Although the three key elements and the paths between them can play out differently depending on the particular research project, we suggest that a research design that considers how to create the space in which researchers and stakeholders will meet, align motivations between researchers and stakeholders, and build mutual trust will help foster productive researcher–stakeholder relationships.
KW  - cocreated knowledge
KW  - ecosystem services
KW  - participatory research
KW  - research design
KW  - stakeholder engagement
KW  - transdisciplinary research
Y1  - 2019
UR  - https://publishup.uni-potsdam.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/50044
SN  - 1708-3087
VL  - 24
IS  - 1
PB  - Resilience Alliance
CY  - Wolfville
ER  -