Stakeholder Analysis

In common with other projects in the RESAS programme, Natural Capital -Galvanising Change (D5.3) follows a Responsible Research and Innovation approach to co-produce research with stakeholders and publics, emphasising openness, transparency, diversity, inclusiveness and adapting the research as far as possible to changing contexts and needs (Owen et al., 2012). Broadly speaking, there are two reasons for this (Reed, 2008). First, the pragmatic argument is that working with stakeholders can facilitate more relevant research than is more likely to yield beneficial impacts in a given context. By engaging relevant stakeholders in the research from the outset, D5.3 will be able to consider the range of individuals, groups and organisations that might benefit from the research, whether directly or indirectly, and increase the likelihood that the project delivers tangible benefits that are relevant across as many of these groups as possible, rather than just benefiting formal project partners and ‘easy to reach’ groups. Second, there is the normative argument that the research team should engage stakeholders in a project that seeks to shape the delivery of outcomes from natural capital policies and facilitate highintegrity ecosystem markets in Scotland. There is evidence that decisions about who engages in research can have a strong bearing on the legitimacy of decisions and the likelihood that those decisions are actually implemented and deliver benefits rather than unintended negative consequences (de Vente et al., 2016). This finding is because decisions benefit from more comprehensive information inputs and ownership over outcomes (de Vente et al., 2016; Reed, 2018a). As such, the goal is to enable broad participation from relevant publics and stakeholders in D5.3 research. For definitions of publics, stakeholders, participation and impact, see Box 1. Based on this approach, engagement with publics and stakeholders in D5.3 will beguided by a stakeholder analysis to systematically assess the relative interest, influence and impacts associated with different organisations and groups who are affected by, or have the capacity to affect, decisions pertaining natural capital policy and ecosystem markets in Scotland. This report starts by explaining stakeholder analysis and the methods used to analyse stakeholders for D5.3, followed by the presentation of results from the analysis.