Biotechnology Commission (AEBC) Research Agendas Workstream
Meeting 20 July 2004
Paper RA2.3: Stakeholder consultation
1. Invitations to tender have now been sent to various firms for the public and stakeholder engagement exercise that will form a key part of the research agendas workstream. But this exercise will only engage a subset of stakeholders considered particularly “hard to reach” by the Commission, because of limited resources and because it was felt that most stakeholders could be involved in the work through more conventional methods.
2. No decisions have been made about how these stakeholders should be asked to input to and comment on the research agendas work. Questions to resolve include
· When should stakeholder engagement take place?
· What form(s) should engagement take?
Written or meetings? Asking specific questions or asking for comments on draft reports or other outputs? In the animals and biotechnology workstream, a stakeholder seminar was held in November 2001 to discuss emerging conclusions, and the same was done for the consumer choice and coexistence subgroup in April 2003. The liability subgroup held a written consultation asking various questions on post-commercialisation scenarios in September 2002.
· Who should be consulted?
People to consult on the research agendas workstream include the AEBC’s usual main stakeholders in Government, NGOs, industry and academia, as well as those with a specific interest in the research side, including the relevant research funders themselves. Many of these will be consulted as part of the information gathering process, although they should be given a chance to comment on the Commission’s outputs as well.
· How can the case studies be involved in stakeholder consultation?
Perhaps the scope of the case studies needs to be agreed before this can be decided?
