Creating lasting partnerships: the importance of cross stakeholder involvement

Your project success is highly dependent on the adoption of your results by for example; regulators, patients, medical staff or scientist, therefore, it is important to have them included and involved in the project from the beginning.

Why is cross stakeholder involvement important for your Horizon Europe project?

Let us illustrate this with an example: recently we visited the anniversary congress of the IMI, which have existed for 10 years. Here, a patient representative told her personal story, which was truly inspirational and gave the audience insights into the patient’s perspectives. Her take home message was: “Nothing about us, without us.”

By understanding the root cause of stakeholder behaviour, you are able to assess better ways of working together for a productive relationship and project outcome. Some people refer to stakeholder involvement as stakeholder management. This implies that the external stakeholders can be managed, while in fact there is no formal authority and the results rely on engagement and involvement with the project. Cross stakeholder involvement consists of both engagement (establishing relationships) and management (managing the processes).

3 important steps to successful projects:

1. Reciprocal communication

This two-way engagement is the basic layer for stakeholder involvement and entails communication to and from the consortium to external stakeholders. Your stakeholders should not be passive receivers of information, but instead be actively included in discussions. The two-way communication will help you to understand concerns and motives of your stakeholders and through this establish common goals.

2. Smart(er) consensus building

This step is to establish the most acceptable baseline across a set of stakeholders’ diverging expectations and priorities. By working to build consensus, the consortium empowers the stakeholders to express disagreements and collaborate on solutions. One of the many ways for soliciting input and ideas in more active way to participate in focus groups, community convenings and other events.

3. Co-creation/co-design

Co-creation or co-design means taking steps to ensure that the project is guided by the voices and perspectives of the all external stakeholders. By involving all of your stakeholders, you will  be able to render true impact with your research project. This is one of the things we support you with at PNO.

Interested in hearing more about our services?

At PNO Innovation, we support research consortia in designing and executing meaningful stakeholder engagement strategies, from reciprocal communication to smart consensus building and true co-creation. Whether through stakeholder mapping, co-design workshops or community dialogue, we help you integrate external voices to maximise the impact and relevance of your Horizon Europe project.