Increasing stakeholder engagement in research projects through standardization activities

PurposeThis research assesses the implications of integrating standardization activities into European research projects to foster the engagement of project internal and external stakeholders and into different project stakeholder management theories.Design/methodology/approachThis paper analyzes the integration of standardization and the engagement of project internal and external stakeholders in standardization activities in a multi-case study of four European Framework Program projects and with the projects Advancing Resilience of Historic Areas Against Climate-Related and Other Hazards (ARCH) and Smart Mature Resilience (SMR) in two separate case studies more deeply. The multi-case study mainly evaluates the stakeholder participation in 10 CEN Workshop Agreements. While in the two case studies, among other things, two project surveys are used to investigate how stakeholder engagement was supported by standardization activities.FindingsThe results show that standardization significantly supports stakeholder engagement and lead to a proposal on how standardization can support achieving stakeholder engagement goals in the different research project phases.Originality/valueThis research provides practical information for policy-makers who support standardization as a tool for research, as well as for researchers and project managers who want to use standardization activities efficiently in research projects.