A key purpose of CRESP is to develop an independent institutional mechanism to develop data and methodology to make risk a key part of its decision making. CRESP works by improving the scientific and technical basis of environmental management decisions leading to protective and cost-effective cleanup of the US's nuclear weapons and to enhance stakeholder understanding of the nation's nuclear weapons production facility waste sites. CRESP is committed to integrating risk evaluation with the concerns and duties of various stakeholders, including regulators, who are affected by or are responsible for the cleanup. It is seeking to understand the perceptions, dynamics and interests among stakeholders as it responds to their requests for data and technical perspective.

The CRESP library collection contains Scholarly Products produced by CRESP researchers, government documents related to CRESP research, and a variety of related research and general literature in the area of risk evaluation, nuclear clean-up and environmental issues. The CRESP Library Collection can be searched online with the CRESP Library Catalog.

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Building and sustaining democratic and accountable governance structures using ICT. The widening use of Information and Communication Technology is leading to distributed knowledge and power structures. It is changing the political scenes as it is reshaping democracy and the way citizens interact with the Government. With the emergence of pro-active knowledge societies, governments will have to constantly improvise to bring in greater efficiency, accountability and transparency in their functioning. Models of digital Governance are evolving - the website identifies a few generic models which are shaping up. These models are based on the inherent characteristics of the new technologies which are: enabling equal access to information to anyone who is a part of the digital network and de-concentration of information across the entire digital network.

The Harrison Program on the Future Global Agenda engages in futures-oriented teaching and research that will contribute to humanity's ability to anticipate and deal effectively with these important currents of change, such as global environmental change, demographic trends, and the diffusion of technological innovations. The Harrison Program examines the nature and interaction of environmental, technological, social, and political systems, and to suggest potential means of breaking out of destructive patterns of behavior. To this end, faculty develop new and innovative educational materials, conduct scholarly research, and organize conferences and workshops that bring together scientists, social theorists, advocates, and policy makers to examine key components of the future global agenda.

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Human Rights Research and Education Center, University of Ottawa (English &  French)

Business Ethics and Corporate Stakeholder Relations Program

The philosophy of the Centre's activities in this area is the thesis that University Centres such as HRREC can be the bridging mechanism between the corporate community and the public sector/civil society in this very complex and sensitive area.

The Centre is hosting gatherings in Canada of corporations, government officials and representatives of civil society focused on business ethics.

Research Overview: "Participation"

Participatory practices have spread across countries, hemispheres, disciplines, sectors and themes. While once linked to projects, and focused mainly on rural development, participation is now linked to larger issues of policy and governance, and used as an approach is almost every sector, south and north. The Participation Groups works on four key themes (you can find research papers in each section):

Developing Ideas was published bi-monthly by the International Institute for Sustainable Development, from Jan/Feb 1996 to May/June 1999. Issue 5 (Sept 1996) on Security features a short essay on "Multi-stakeholder Paths to Peace"

http://iisd.ca/didigest/sept96/default.htm

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The Loka Institute, US - a non-profit research and advocacy organization concerned with the social, political, and environmental repercussions of research, science and technology. Making Research, Science & Technology Responsive to Democratically Decided Social & Environmental Concerns. It provides on-line publication. Find information on their projects, for example:

The Community Research Network (CRN) is a trans-national network of research and grassroots organizations conducting community-based research for social change. The mission of the CRN is to create a system through which grassroots, worker, and public-interest organizations and local governments can - by establishing the agenda and controlling the results of research - find solutions to social and environmental problems and participate more effectively in public policy.

Collaborative and adaptive resource management approaches. Introduction to participatory research undertaken by Manaaki Whenua - Landcare Research, includes a range of on-line papers and reports outlining practical field experience in areas such as: managing group processes, multi-stakeholder catchment management, and collaborative regional-scale adaptive management approaches.

Links for developing change in Natural Resource Management - an on-line resource guide for those seeking to improve the use of collaborative and learning-based approaches. This site aims to provide a practical resource for those who work with communities (in the wider sense of the term) to help them identify and adopt more sustainable natural resource management practices. Find links to research papers and sites on topics like:

http://nrm.massey.ac.nz/changelinks/index.html

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Future directions for research into collaborative learning - helping people maximise the use of technical information within multi-stakeholder environmental management contexts. This working paper by Will Allen outlines three linked areas to leverage an improved environmental management system: i) improving the use of participation and local knowledge in the research process; ii) developing social capital - trust, co-operation and networks - as a necessary underlying social environment to support the improved use of information in environmental management; and iii) capacity building - supporting these approaches - through the use of participatory monitoring and evaluation. The importance of action research and the need to draw lessons out from cross-case studies are highlighted. Finally some challenges for action research to help in large-scale collaborative learning exercises are noted, including the need to develop closer links with more quantitative approaches to social research.

This on-line document (92 pages), by Dr Grazia Borrini-Feyerabend and colleagues, provides a comprehensive guide-for-action of the use of collaborative management (CM) to help address environmental and natural resource issues. It is designed to assist facilitators and partners of co-management processes. It provides guidelines for multi-stakeholder management of natural resources and describes in detail relevant concepts, methods and tools. The emphasis is on practical approaches and advice, in line with the experience gained in field initiatives promoted by GTZ and IUCN. The test is accompanied by definition boxes, example boxes, checklists, annexes illustrating participatory methods and tools of particular relevance for co-management processes, lessons learned, tips for action and a list of references and suggested readings. Readers are fully authorised to reproduce this paper in part or in total for non-commercial purposes, provided the source is quoted.

http://nrm.massey.ac.nz/changelinks/cmnr.html

This site represents a wealth of experience in community development and sustainable resource management practice, made up of 17 organizations from throughout the Northern California/Southern Oregon bioregion. It is an experiment. Faced with increasing competition for limited funding and the enormous complexity of the common challenges facing them, these groups agreed to begin working in collaboration to develop and implement ecologically sound, community-based redevelopment strategies based on the idea of sustainability. The primary goals of the CLC are to work together - to develop peer training mechanisms to share successful strategies, skills and techniques from one area and organization to another --- and to have an opportunity to share their experiences with others.

Redefining the Corporation - a website designed to facilitate a project on "The Role of the Corporation". The goal of the Project is "to increase the amount and improve the quality of scholarly and managerial attention devoted to consideration and analysis of the nature, purpose, and governance of corporations, particularly as they involve business activity in an international context".

The Stakeholder Dialogues are an annual series of events focusing on various groups that have a stake in the business enterprise. They are designed to increase public understanding of the issues, and to encourage ethical action by business organizations.

http://www.gsb.stthomas.edu/ethics/stakehol.htm

Paper by Shann Turnbull, 1996, at the Fourteenth International Conference, International Association of Management, Toronto.
A cybernetic perspective is used to evaluate firms with or without stakeholder participation in their information and control architecture. This approach also provides a basis for evaluating firms with more than one board or control center. Empirical evidence supports the hypothesis that multi control centers with stakeholder participation can provide competitive advantages. The opportunity to support stakeholder governance with stakeholder ownership is identified from an analysis of how corporate rights of perpetual succession permits investors to be overpaid. The public policy implications of investor overpayments are considered. Also considered is the use of cybernetic principles to introduce self-regulation as proposed by the US Vice President. Policy initiatives are identified to build a 'stakeholder economy' as proposed by the Leader of the Labor Party in Britain. The paper concludes that appropriate stakeholder governance could improve equity and self-governance in the private sector, the quality of democracy in the public sector, and the efficiency of both sectors.

Stakeholder Interests and Community Groups: A New View. International Association for Business and Society Annual Meetings, 1996. Paper by Burton, B.K. & Dunn, C.P

This paper applies an emerging area of thought regarding stakeholder theory to relationships between firms and local volunteer organizations. This area of thought, grounding stakeholder theory in feminist theory, leads to a view of managers as caring persons, wishing to help the myriad local organizations in all ways. The paper concentrates on allowing employees to do volunteer work with organizations they care for, using release time if the need arises.

Public Management Foundation: The Stakeholder Journal

The first issue of the Stakeholder was published in April 1997. It was founded to disseminate 'Nolan' principles to Britain's public sector. The Nolan Committee was set up in 1994, in the wake of widespread disquiet about parliamentary standards and values. The Stakeholder saw as its audience all those involved in the governance and management of these bodies, as well as other interested individuals in academia, politics and elsewhere. It is a bimonthly journal; by the start of this year, 12 issues had been published and over 50,000 copies distributed.

http://www.pmfoundation.org.uk/sj.htm

Trade Knowledge Network

Research Project: Trade and Sustainable Development Resources

Building on the ongoing UNCTAD/UNDP country project on Trade and Environment in India, the proposed project aims at reviewing and using experience in business partnerships and multi-stakeholder approaches to support India's efforts in meeting certain objectives in the context of multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs) in a cost-effective and developmental-benign way.

http://192.197.196.001/tkn/resources/research/undp-diff.htm

University of Warwick

Research Briefing: Stakeholder Partnership for Good Corporate Citizenship

http://www.warwick.ac.uk/~bsrpc/research.html

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Contact Minu Hemmati and Felix Dodds for further information.