Stakeholder engagement is the process of involving and working together with stakeholders before, during, and after the research project.
Stakeholder engagement helps to ensure the project’s relevance to local communities and health systems as well as its sustainability, bridging the gaps between research, policy, and practice.
In implementation research, stakeholders include:
those who the research project intends to benefit (e.g. communities, patients, informal carers, health care professionals)
those who help implement and embed the intervention being studied into ‘real world’ contexts (e.g. health ministry officials, NGO directors, community leaders, telecommunications firms (for digital health projects))
those with the authority to decide how the results and knowledge-generated by the research project are used (e.g. local, national or international policymakers).
Building rapport, understanding, and respect with and between stakeholder groups is paramount to the success of a research project.
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