SKA South Africa: Moving from stakeholder management to stakeholder engagement – a case study

Author: Anton Binneman – Square Kilometre Array, South Africa

Co-authors:

• Mathieu Isidro – SKA

The establishment of the SKA project holds both positive and negative consequences for a vast array of stakeholders. This paper reflects on how stakeholder management and communication evolved since the inception of the South African part of the project to shed light on the complexities and challenges of science communication and stakeholder management and engagement. The discussions on the stakeholder communication that evolved during the four phases identified, demonstrates how the shift from stakeholder management to stakeholder engagement occurred and what the implications of these shifts were.

The evolution of stakeholder communication is discussed in four phases; reflecting on the objectives, challenges and accomplishments in each phase. The discussion of each phase aims to demonstrate how the integration of knowledge accumulated in each phase and was used to develop a strategic and sustainable stakeholder engagement framework, as well as to map the way forward for science communication of this kind.

By way of an introduction, the presentation commences with an overview of Radio Astronomy in South Africa, covering its history and brief discussions on the instruments that have been established in South Africa. This brief discussion provides a perspective on the enormity of the SKA project from multidisciplinary scientific and engineering disciplines integrated with strategic communication and sustainable stakeholder engagement.

The author has not yet submitted a copy of the full paper.

Presentation type: Insight talk
Theme: Time