STEPS releases stakeholder engagement guidance for researchers

By: Erin Ferrare, STEPS Science Communication intern

The Science and Technology for Phosphorus Sustainability (STEPS) Center is proud to announce the release of two pivotal guides and accompanying videos aimed at enriching stakeholder engagement in both academic and community settings. These resources are designed to empower educators, students, and community leaders with effective strategies to foster meaningful participation and collaboration. The videos are available on STEPS’ Youtube channel.

The STEPS Center is the world’s largest research center dedicated to phosphorus sustainability, working to enhance sustainability of this essential element for life while addressing stakeholder needs. As the leading convergence research center in this field, STEPS uniquely integrates stakeholder perspectives into collective strategies that advance phosphorus sustainability across scales and sectors. While other groups, research projects, and consortia engage stakeholders, no other large center matches STEPS in embedding stakeholder collaboration into phosphorus sustainability and management at such a range of scales and sectors.

Engaging stakeholders in STEPS research is one of the Center’s core pillars. By rigorously engaging and interacting with stakeholders, STEPS research, decisions, and resulting outcomes will be able to better respond to and meet stakeholder priorities and needs. This, in turn, helps ensure STEPS achieves its 25-in-25 goals, through strategic integration of stakeholder needs within the Center’s research while also enhancing adoption. Additional benefits to engaging stakeholders in STEPS include: having a more comprehensive view or understanding of pressing issues related to P sustainability or management as well as developing more appropriate solutions that can be implemented or adopted by stakeholders. In addition, engaging stakeholders in STEPS research can also help develop solutions that are not only just, fair, equitable but also responsive to diverse perspectives and needs.

The comprehensive guides outline key steps to involve stakeholders and community members in identifying and addressing potential environmental and societal challenges. It emphasizes the importance of integrating local knowledge into solutions, ensuring just and equitable outcomes, and leveraging diverse perspectives to tackle complex issues. Delving into three dimensions of student engagement—emotional, behavioral, and cognitive— the stakeholder engagement guide presents teaching practices that encourage active participation; it offers strategies to humanize courses, communicate clearly, remove barriers to content engagement, and foster a sense of community among students.

STEPS has produced two written guides: “Let’s Engage Stakeholders in STEPS Research: A Quick Guide to Engagement” and “Guide to Engaging Stakeholders in STEPS Research,” a longer, comprehensive guide to conducting stakeholder engagement.