How the COVID-19 pandemic changed stakeholder engagement processes in sustainability research in the long-term.

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic affected stakeholder engagement in sustainability research projects in many ways. But which effects appear permanent today, after the pandemic ended? Methods: To address this, we interviewed researchers and stakeholders and carried out a survey among European sustainability research projects in 2022. Results: We find that the pandemic years disrupted stakeholder-based research, also with lasting effects. The forced shift to online modes showed how digital engagement can bring benefits in terms of easier and more efficient stakeholder engagement, but also that important aspects are lost, particularly regarding intensity of collaboration and depth of insights. Whether to go online or stay offline depends largely on the research objective, which stakeholders to involve, and how well researchers and stakeholders already know each other. Most researchers and stakeholders want to continue online collaboration in the long term, especially those with positive online collaboration experiences from the pandemic years. Conclusions: The pandemic has a long-term impact on stakeholder engagement in research; online engagement cannot replace all benefit of previous in-person interactions with stakeholders, but it has led to digital innovations and expanded the engagement portfolio. Our research has provided qualitative insights into the impact of the pandemic on stakeholder engagement in various sustainability research projects and the implications for the long-term future that are relevant to researchers and funding agencies.

COVID-19 vs. stakeholder engagement: the impact of coronavirus containment measures on stakeholder involvement in European energy research projects.

The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has affected societies and economies around the world, and the scientific community is no exception. Whereas the importance of stakeholder engagement in research has grown quickly the consequences of the pandemic on this has so far not been empirically studied. In this paper, we investigate the effects of the COVID-19 crisis on European energy research, in particular the stakeholder work, during the first wave of the coronavirus in spring and summer 2020. We pose the research questions: (i) How much of a problem are the coronavirus containment measures for stakeholder engagement? (ii) How have researchers coped with the situation, and (iii) How do they evaluate alternative stakeholder activities implemented? We conducted an online survey among European energy research projects with stakeholder engagement between June and August 2020. We found that only one of six engagement activities could be implemented as planned, whereas almost half were cancelled or delayed. The most common coping strategies were changing involvement formats - mainly to webinars or online workshops - or postponement. Whereas respondents are largely satisfied with one-to-one and unidirectional online formats, such as webinars, online interviews, and online surveys, they see interactive group activities as less suitable for online engagement. Most respondents plan to continue using online formats to complement, but not to replace, physical meetings in future research. All long-term effects remain to be seen, but given the postponement of many stakeholder involvement activities, many projects may face problems at later stages of their realisation. These findings suggest that the pandemic may have catalysed a rapid introduction of specific online formats in academic stakeholder interaction processes.