What motivates stakeholders to engage with researchers?

Box 2: Motives for stakeholders to collaborate with researchers

When we asked stakeholders what motivated them to work with researchers, these were the most common reasons people cited: • Accessing future funding and new business opportunities • Developing new solutions to old problems • Increasing personal impact/influence through collaboration with researchers • Intrinsic motivation to “make the world a better place” or a desire to learn about the issues being researched

Bear these motives in mind, and see if you can work out which of these motives apply to the people you want to work with. By tapping into their motives, and explaining clearly how working with you can achieve what they want, you are much more likely to get the level of engagement you want.