The Challenge of “Stakeholder Engagement”.

Right from the inception of this project, it has been our intention to try and involve the academic community at Cardiff in the development of a ‘lean’ Programme Approval Procedure as much as is practically possible.  Failure to do so would likely lead to a lack of ‘buy-in’, and risk failure.

The question is … how to do so, given the myriad of different commitments that academic staff have, the devolved structure at the University, the varied needs of 28 different schools, and the natural reluctance we all have to get involved in something where it is not immediately clear “what’s in it for me”.

It is a common theme within our cluster, one we have sought to look at together by exploring innovative ways of involving ‘stakeholders’ and by investigating different models of ‘participatory design’.  The problem is, as soon as you start talking about “facilitating stakeholder involvement in participatory design” is that half the audience will switch off, and the other half will look bemused!  We desperately need an alternative an alternative term to “stakeholders”.  Any suggestions please get in touch.

So how will this be undertaken?  The need to gather feedback from and the views of all 28 schools has been acknowledged, as an addition to the specific involvement in the project of the School of Nursing and Midwifery Studies.  We also plan to gather video clips to illustrate the different perceptions that staff have of the current procedure, and to work with staff undertaking the PCUTL programme, by thinking about different models of curriculum design and the need to develop sustainable programmes.  There will be other ways to get involved.  How this will be done … well that’s largely up to you – so why don’t you get in touch, you never know it might actually be a useful and interesting thing to do.