What does ‘good’ look like for digital public and stakeholder engagement?
How can we ensure that digital engagement processes are open, accessible, and inclusive?
How can we design engagement processes so that they increase trust, integrity and accountability in institutions and decision-making?
If you – like many other researchers, practitioners, and policy decision-makers across the UK and beyond – are thinking about these questions, then this research brief could be useful for you. I have recently shared a research brief of my PhD thesis, which explored best practice strategies for engagement in the digital age. This has been shared with a number of private and public sector organisations in the UK who are interested in improving strategies for public and stakeholder engagement. This included 10 ‘thinking points’ (recommendations) for effective engagement in the digital age (summarised in the diagram below).
These 10 evidence-led recommendations are aimed at practitioners, practice-enablers, and policy makers who aim to improve the strategy and/or delivery of public and stakeholder engagement in planning and other decision-making processes. They are relevant to organisations (e.g., Government departments, public agencies, and local authorities) that seek to embed a best practice culture of engagement, and/or practitioners who want to undertake more effective engagement and understand what works.
You can download a DRAFT research brief of the 10 thinking points below. This brief contains the evidence behind best practice digital engagement. I am currently working on delivering best practice guidance for practitioners and academic publications – watch this space.
Please note that this is a draft and working document and some aspects are likely to change. Also note that although my PhD thesis has been approved for publication, the system for publishing a thesis online is slow and so it is not yet publicly available. However, I wanted to share aspects of the thesis earlier, and am very interested in receiving questions and comments.
Any questions or comments? Feel free to get in touch via Twitter or email.