Strategy report on stakeholder identification, interaction and involvement

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 874724 1 Equal-Life Stakeholder involvement and intervention development Project title: Early Environmental quality and life-course mental health effects Project Number: 874724 Project Acronym: Equal-Life Work package 8 - Deliverable D8.1 Strategy report on stakeholder identification, interaction and involvement Version 15-12-2020 Ref. Ares(2020)7906619 - 23/12/2020 This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 874724 2 H2020 program Grant agreement numbers 874724 (Equal-Life), Project start date: Jan 1st 2020 Duration: 60 months Project Coordinator: Irene van Kamp (RIVM) WP (number and title) Stakeholder involvement and intervention development Deliverable Number D8.1 Deliverable Title Strategy report on stakeholder identification, interaction and involvement Due date M8 amended to M12 Actual date 31-12-2020 The Deliverable 8.1 is called Strategy on stakeholder involvement. This is of the ‘Demonstrator’ type at a Public Dissemination level. This is of the ‘Demonstrator’ type at a Public Dissemination level. Lead beneficiary RIVM Responsible authors Peter van den Hazel E-mail / phone responsible authors Peter van den Hazel [email protected] +31 621379722 Co-authors Miriam Weber [email protected] Sonja Jeram sonja.j[email protected]i Gordana Ristovska ristovskagordan[email protected] Dirk Schreckenberg [email protected] Maddie White [email protected] Marco Balduini [email protected] Roos Teeuwen [email protected] Achilleas Psyllidis [email protected] This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 874724 3 Version 1 11.11.2020 Comments Mw, IvK, SJ, GR, DS, RT, AP Version 2 25.11.2020 IvK, GR, MW, SJ, GR,DS, MW This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 874724 4 Table of Contents 1 Introduction .................................................................................................................................... 5 2 Stakeholder identification, interaction and involvement ............................................................... 7 2.1 Objectives WP8 ....................................................................................................................... 7 2.2 Stakeholder identification ....................................................................................................... 8 2.3 Science -Policy Interface ....................................................................................................... 11 2.4 Strategy ................................................................................................................................. 12 2.4.1 Inventories of information needs of stakeholders via dialogue ................................... 13 2.4.2 Provide stakeholders with background information on Exposome and Equal-Life ...... 14 3 Activities in conjunction with WP10 and WP11 ............................................................................ 15 Annex 1 Questions for the DELPHI survey Round 1 ............................................................................. 16 Annex 2 Communication and dissemination tools ............................................................................... 18 This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 874724 5 1 Introduction Equal-Life: science and practice Equal-Life studies the impact on children’s mental health and cognitive development by the external exposome. This external exposome comprises of the physical exposome (such as aspects of the built environment and environmental quality) and the social exposome (such as societal context, socioeconomic, social and psychosocial contexts). The overarching aim of the Equal-Life project is to develop evidence-based guidance for policy-makers and decision-makers, particularly at the local government level, and for professionals working in various domains in which the physical and social exposome, specifically of children, are addressed. These stakeholders are crucial in implementing Equal-Life results and in improving children’s mental health and cognitive development as well in addressing (health) inequalities. The guidance from Equal-Life will facilitate them in the identification and design of intervention strategies and preventive measures, focused on the risk factors of mental health and the cognitiveand socio-emotional development of children. Evidence-based policies and programmes can tackle adverse environments and create restorative ones, improving mental health and reducing the overall burden of disease. Science-policy interface Since the last decade we witness increased attention and call for interaction between the scientific field and ‘practice’ in order to improve impact of both ‘domains’. In (policy) science literature this is abundantly described using the concept or framework of ‘policy-science interface’. Some (academic) notes on policy science interface and stakeholder (analysis) are specifically on: - Raise awareness (link with WP10) - Get (formal) support for implementing research actions - Understand how scientific knowledge is used in decision-making - Understand policy making processes in order to improve research use in policy - Stakeholder involvement influences perceptions of research legitimacy and relevance. A similar strand of (academic) literature can be found regarding ‘stakeholders’ and, more practical guidance, on ‘stakeholder analysis strategies’, both from policy science as from economy / marketing sciences. Equal-Life stakeholder analysis Why? We identified potential stakeholders during the preparatory work for the project proposal on children’s mental health and cognitive development. These include experts, policy makers, nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) and research groups, who generate important and relevant knowledge from different perspectives. We think that it would be interesting to engage these stakeholders in identifying specific needs in addressing these health inequalities. These needs concern awareness, knowledge, data, instruments and other gaps encountered in addressing mental health and cognitive development of children, in its broadest sense. To tackle these needs we require a knowledge base necessary for decision and policy-makers and professionals working in domains that address the social and physical exposome. Because the interests, abilities, influence and impact of stakeholders vary greatly, we need to account for that in optimizing the uptake of research project results. This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 874724 6 How? Equal-Life WP8 is addressing this policy-science interface, based upon a stakeholder analysis and various methods for stakeholder involvement. The results are linked with and feed into other work packages (e.g. WP4 task 4.4 health equity impact assessment pilots at city level; WP9 Tool Box development, and WP10 Communication and dissemination). In this Strategy report on stakeholder identification, interaction and involvement the main approaches and (preliminary) results are presented. This Deliverable is of the ‘Demonstrator’ type. This report is the strategy and will be followed by a tool such as a webbased plugin to demonstrate a working tool for increasing stakeholder involvement. The main result of this deliverable is the set-up for a demonstrator for accessing and interacting with the stakeholders during the Equal-Life project. This deliverable describes the objectives of the tasks related to this demonstrator, such as stakeholder identification, stakeholder interaction and involvement including its proposed related activities. This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 874724 7 2 Stakeholder identification, interaction and involvement 2.1 Objectives WP8 The specific objective of work package 8 is to involve stakeholders (decisionand policy-makers particularly at city level, professionals, NGO’s, etc.) during the lifetime of the project to develop evidence-based health policies and data-driven interventions, and to give the context for co-design that leads to the Equal-Life Tool box that will be developed and implemented in WP9. We will have a dialogue between the research community and these ‘practice’ representatives to connect the two worlds. We do this by using the results of the other work packages and by using the tasks and challenges in cities and within specific organisations within the domain of children’s mental, physical and social health and cognitive development. This then again can feed back into the work packages. We want to place the task of stakeholder identification, interaction and involvement into a larger context of the tasks of WP8. The focus of task 8.1 is described as ‘Connecting science to policy’. This task will establish a bidirectional dialogue between the Equal-Life project and (inter)national, regional, local professionals, from public and private sectors as well as associations or NGOs’, selected on a (Equal-Life) topical focus. This focus leads to a combined set of activities: 1) Identify knowledge gaps and needs with cooperation of stakeholders; 2) Translate project results into effective children health policies and policies related to implementation of policies towards social and environmental domain improvements and 3) Inject knowledge about best practices and health policies into the project. These activities aim to maximize the cooperation with and acceptance by the end users and stakeholders of Equal-Life. This deliverable describes the route we take towards that aim. This leads to the following demonstrators: 1) the connection with stakeholders and collection of their input on knowledge gaps and needs related to science and policy around children’s mental health as outcome of exposome related exposures. 2) a governance model for the context of framing the results into a policy framework. 3) the methods of active involvement of end users and stakeholders in the development of best practices and health policies. The demonstrators 2 and 3 will be developed in close cooperation with WP9 and WP10. But first we have to identify the stakeholders as task within WP8. This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 874724 8 2.2 Stakeholder identification Stakeholder analysis at a glance1 First we describe the general context of a stakeholder analysis. Stakeholder analysis is a process of systematically gathering and analysing qualitative information to determine whose interests should be taken into account when developing evidence-based interventions, knowledge and instruments. Who is a stakeholder? Stakeholders in a process are actors (persons or organisations) with interests and/or tasks in the specific domain or topic. In the (academic) literature various types / categories of stakeholders, or “interested parties”, are identified, such as : national political (legislators, governors), public (ministries , regional and local authorities), labour (unions, medical associations), commercial / private for profit, non-profit (non-governmental) organisations (NGOs), foundations, civil society, and users/ consumers. Which stakeholder characteristics are analysed? The analysis includes stakeholder characteristics such as knowledge of the specific topic, interests related to the topic, position for or against the topic, potential alliances with other stakeholders, and ability to affect the developed or (to be) implemented knowledge and interventions (through power, roles / responsibilities and/or leadership). Equal-Life stakeholders identification In order to work with stakeholders we have to identify who our stakeholders are. The Equal-Life project focuses on children and their mental health and cognitive development. Thus, the stakeholder selection primarily focuses on organisations that deal with work on children, youth, mental development, mental health, cognitive development, social environment, physical environment or combinations of these fields of work. Stakeholders are defined as those parties with an interest in the execution and outcome of the project, including those affected by, or dependent on, the outcome. For the project Equal-Life, these include organisations, institutions, offices and departments involved in child and adolescent (mental) health, public health, environmental quality and research at local, regional, national and European level. But also the private sector, schools, day care centre, mental health care and youth organisations. The contact data that are collected can all be found in the public domain. These data are solely related to contact addresses and are not available for other purposes than inviting stakeholders for interviews, dialogue purposes, sharing ideas, proposals and needs or providing answers to questions about the Equal-Life project. We use snowballing techniques, collecting relevant names and contacts through Equal-Life partners, involving networks that Equal-Life partners are active in (such as EuroCities, WHO European Healthy Cities Network, INCHES etc). 1 Based upon: Kammi Schmeer. Stakeholder Analysis Guidelines. WHO. 1999 This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 874724 9 Contacts established through previous child (mental) health and relevant projects form the foundation of the targeted strategy2. Those who have expressed interest will be presented with the latest developments of the project, including interim results, publications, event details and other related projects and results. In this way momentum and interest is created for the final Equal-Life results. A preliminary analysis of stakeholders helps in the development of specified approaches towards a range of stakeholders. This depends foremost on the interest and influence that stakeholders have. Equal-Life stakeholder identification Relevant stakeholders relate to the areas of strategic impact on which Equal-Life have the following roles: 1. Providing, developing and using of tools and methodology to integrate and link environmental data with health data and information within studies on children’s and adolescent (mental) health and development; 2. Working to define an integrated exposure concept and prediction of individual disease risks related to the physical and social environment; 3. Looking for, or working on, reduction of uncertainty in risk assessments of chemicals and physical factors; 4. Working to improve understanding of the effect of multiple exposures, and users of such information; 5. Developing preventive strategies to improve public health (and its related costs); 6. Looking for increased competitiveness on the European market, intent to identify new business sectors in exposure characterisation, technical tool development and modelling; 7. Addressing priority goals of established policies on Environment and Health such as in EU or WHO declarations. 8. Working to reduction of the environmental burden of disease. These roles can be found at different stakeholders. The following categories of stakeholders have been chosen: - EU-bodies - Intergovernmental organisations - National, regional, local stakeholders, such as public health institutes, education/pedagogic institutions - Governmental organisations such as city councils, provinces, ministries and other public authorities - Scientific organisations (universities, research institutes) - Health care institutions for mental health - Civil society or NGO’s as HEAL, WECF - Private sector - Media (up to now related to events where Equal-Life is mentioned or present) - Individual environmental and social health professionals/experts 2 E.g. Psychocontext, ENDpoiNTs, STOP, MOCHA, CHICOS, LifeCycle This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 874724 16 Annex 1 Questions for the DELPHI survey Round 1 Round 1 General questions Introduction We want to gain a broad understanding of the experts view on future events. All this relates to children and mental health. Mental health is the result of the complex interplay between genetic, psychological, environmental and other factors and experiences. The exposome concept, referring to the totality of exposures from conception onwards, is emerging as a very promising approach in studying the role of the environment in human disease. The EU-funded Equal-Life project will develop and utilise the exposome concept in an integrated study of the external exposome and its social aspects and of measurable internal physiological factors and link those to a child's development and life course mental health. This will be done using a novel approach combining exposure data to characterise, measure, model and understand influences at different developmental stages. The goal is to propose the best supportive environments for all children. We would like to hear from our stakeholders what problems they expect to be important for their work to support some additional research on in order to implement policies or measures. The domains we are looking at are: environment, social exposure (mental health of children/youth) external exposome (social, environmental) gaps in knowledge, missing tools or data - process support for making interventions or for decision-making - outcome We use the term exposome in the following way: The human exposome encompasses exposures to environmental factors throughout life, starting from conception and pregnancy.(pollution, infections, diet, socioeconomic factors, quality of the built environment, green, blue, lifestyle and have an impact on our health and wellbeing . The exposome concepts captures the non-genetic influences on health and disease. First question: What problem(s) can you identify on a child's development, it's mental health or it's life course health? All this related to the total interplay between genetic, psychological, environmental and other factors and experiences? These problems may refer to different domains: knowledge gaps identification of relevant exposures, accessibility of data, interventions or process issues for policy making. Please write your answer here: Note: We are looking for additional research questions. What problem(s) can you identify on a child's development and life course mental health related to the total interplay between genetic, psychological, environmental and other factors and experiences. For example, children being exposed to noise, air pollution, other forms of pollution can be facing problems with their mental and cognitive development. You may consider problems related to knowledge gaps, identification of relevant exposures, accessibility of data, interventions or process issues for policy making. This first question can be used for general problems you face. Consider any specific age group of children up to 19 years of age. This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 874724 17 Specific problems on knowledge gaps in children's mental health, their exposure or possible interventions? Please write your answer here: This answer box can be used for specific answers related to the problem that certain knowledge is missing. What can you identify as problems? This answer relates to the identification of problems that exist due to lack of information on possible exposures. What problems can you identify? Please write your answer here: This answer relates to the identification of problems related to the implementation of intervention? E.g. what interventions should be studied? Or how should interventions be done? Please write your answer here: This answer relates to the identification of problems of accessibility of data. What problems do you face with the use of data on children's (mental) health and development? Please write your answer here: What problems can you identify related to the field of policy making on children's (mental) health of its development? Please write your answer here: Additional information about the stakeholder What kind of organisation are you representing? Comment only when you choose an answer. Please choose all that apply and provide a comment: • Inter-governmental organisation • National stakeholder • Research institute or organisation • Civil society organisation • Private sector • Public health organisation • Mental health organisation • Other organisation What is the country you are working? Please write your answer here: What is your name and contact email address in case you want to be invited for our seminars, workshops or next steps in this survey? Please write your answer here: This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 874724 18 Annex 2 Communication and dissemination tools Network Website: The European Human Exposome Network website (Report 6, HEAP, M10), is available at www.humanexposome.eu, which links to the Networks nine individual projects websites and can be used as point of reference for the entire Network. The website aims at extending awareness of the results of the network at the broadest possible international scale. All communication material supports will be downloadable from the site (press releases, publishable executive summaries, posters and publications, electronic newsletters, etc.). Each Project will be responsible for delivery of news and event items and other project specific information as well as items that might be of interest from a network perspective, including social media feeds and dissemination of results in published papers. The HEAP-Project will maintain and update the website throughout the duration of the project. The network website will link to the individual websites and vice versa. The Launch Event section links to the presentations that were given during the event by key note speakers and the project coordinators. In addition to social media and news feeds the network website will be updated at least every 12 month and the project coordinators and WG members can make suggestions for materials worthwhile publishing. The WG will make the final decisions in close collaboration with HEAP, who hosts the website. It will be considered to create specific sections targeted at different stakeholder groups. It will be considered to record a short video in which the project coordinators explain what their projects are about e.g. in a professional interview. Equal-Life website: The Equal-Life website is live: https://www.equal-life.eu/en . The website provides information on the project, news, workpackages and contact data. The website will be extended with information on the progress of the project. Network newsletter: A network newsletter will be published on a regular basis (at least every 12 months) and will be prepared by the WG members. The newsletter is aimed at an external audience. Target groups should hereby be distinguished, including umbrella organisations, such as Local Governments for Sustainability ICLEI, WHO European Healthy Cities Network. The content of the newsletters will cover a review of the main news and information of the past period. For example: an overview of the main results and publications with a summary of the potential implications/implementations of the scientific results targeted at stakeholders, conferences, online events, meetings, success stories (e.g. collaboration between projects, progress of working groups), presentation of the coordinating team, Individual project reports, events, materials with title and a link to the respective website, journal publications of papers from projects or related exposome results – with twoline explainer on conclusions and relevant public policy implications. Equal-life newsletter: Equal-life opts for dissemination of information on the project via social media. A group has been established for LinkedIn, different partners will use Twitter and video streaming via YouTube is foreseen in the future. The topics will be similar to those mentioned above for the network newsletter. Templates for presentation: One standard PowerPoint slide related to Equal-Life has been made available to the partners. This will be used by all partners to communicate the purpose of the project in a consistent way. Partners should always ensure that the EU H2020 credit/disclaimer is included in any presentation related to the project. This disclaimer will be part of the template. (see also D10.2) Any dissemination of results (in any form, including electronic) must: This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 874724 19 (a) display the EU emblem and (b) include the following text: Grant Agreement number: 874724 — Equal-Life — H2020-SC1-BHC2018-2020/H2020-SC1-2019-Single-Stage-RTD Network Social Media: All network activities and outputs will be disseminated through the hashtag #exposome, rather than creating a handle account. Proactive dissemination of the network activities and goals and advancement of the results from the participating projects is being done via the EC Twitter hashtag #exposome rather than via the network. The Twitter flow from #exposome is embedded in the network’s website (https://www.humanexposome.eu/news-all/) meaning all posts for this hashtag will also be immediately shown on this website. The network will link on the website to social media from the individual nine projects or via existing networks, Instagram and LinkedIn channels, of the different members of the consortia rather than support specific network media. Related initiatives might also be linked up with/followed, in order to maximise communication of relevant information. Equal-Life social network: Equal-Life will use similar hashtags as the Network. In addition, hashtag #Equal-Life can be applied for Equal-Life related messages. As well as hashtags related to children’s mental health: #childhealth, #mentalhealth, #publichealth. Network and Equal-Life press releases, media articles, etc.: Press releases and media articles from the different participating projects will be shared when considered relevant for the network. The network and Equal-life will create its own press releases where relevant for activities, e.g. for the final event. Local copies of the press releases will be released by the media teams at each coordinating Institute. Conferences, seminars: Individual researchers from the participating projects will seek maximum exposure for the network at high profile conferences and seminars. WP8 will oversee identifying joint conferences between projects (resulting from each project communication and dissemination plan) and conferences relevant for Equal-Life. The work package will be listing the main conferences in which projects will potentially be involved in. Where possible the Network should be referred to, using the standard presentation slide, when presenting at high profile conferences and seminars. Network Publications: Joint publications are envisaged such as a special issue introducing the network in the first year. Equal-life Publications: Equal-life has an own publication policy. See Deliverable of WP10. Network events: In line with the kick-off event (Launch Event) held in February 2020, in year 5 a final joint and public event will be organized by the nine projects. Three network project meetings are also foreseen in months 15, 30 and 45, for network members only. Equal-life events: The events organised by Equal-Life will follow the proposed events stated in the project proposal. Common educational messages: The network’s website includes a page that provides a basic definition of the exposome. This will evolve in a common repository of educational messages about the exposome. Detailed project specific communication and dissemination plans will be available at different moments in time and tailored for the different projects. These include stakeholder meetings, workshops and training session. Where relevant and feasible, details will be made available of those events to all researchers within the network. Equal-Life will refer to these pages in the first part of the project. Later, in the project there will be material developed within Equal-Life.