EMBED

The EMBED project is being conducted alongside a Defra funded study developing guidelines to foster effective stakeholder involvement in decision making processes that impact on the delivery of ecosystem services. The project is being led by Dr Robert Fish of the University of Exeter, and an overview of its objectives can be found here. In essence the study is:

• Exploring what kind of engagement techniques are appropriate for particular decision making situations;
• Providing insight into how to get the technique ‘right’; as well as
• Identifying frameworks that can guide their evaluation.

It also involves attending to the important, if sometimes non-obvious, ways in which the success of engagement processes are ultimately conditioned by wider institutional, political, cultural, and indeed, environmental circumstances. A case study approach is being adopted, drawing on some of the work of the EMBED project.  In sum, the project will deliver:

• General guidelines: to inform good practice with regards to selecting the most appropriate participatory and deliberative techniques for embedding an ecosystems approach into decision making; and,
• Supplementary guidelines: to inform good practice with regards to understanding the contribution that participatory and deliberative techniques can make to improve the way in which non-monetised costs and benefits are  taken into account in decision making alongside monetised costs and benefits

The project is running until September 2010. Contact Rob Fish for further details: