Stakeholder consultation related to COVID: results of activity lead survey

A rapid survey was initiated following a question from the Programme Advisory Group (PAG). The survey was designed to ascertain UK-SCAPE interaction with stakeholders during the Covid 19 pandemic. A nine question survey was distributed to all UK-SCAPE activity leads who would be expected to interact with stakeholders. From a total of 26 work package/task leads who were sent the survey 18 responses were received (70%). 14 task leads or their representatives reported engaging with stakeholders (53% of those expected to have stakeholder interaction). The form of engagement depended on the nature of the work. The majority of the interactions with stakeholders was related to data users and field site owners/managers to keep them abreast of developments and was conducted by email or telephone. Some activities made good use of their websites, social media and newsletters to passively inform a wider audience. A new UK-SCAPE website will enable all activities to have a web presence in future and afford all UK-SCAPE staff the opportunity to passively communicate with stakeholders. Some activity leads reported positive impacts of the pandemic in terms of stakeholder engagement which enabled more individuals to join activities and allowed additional analysis of data already collected to be distributed to stakeholders. Several tasks reported that as a result of their contingency planning there was minimal disruption to their planned work, highlighting the value of strong project management. The majority of the 18 respondents agreed that the rapid Google Survey was a simple and time efficient way to report their interaction with stakeholders. Follow-up with the eight non-responding activity leads is planned.