David Little gave a lunch-time seminar entitled “Can bringing multiple stakeholders together improve aquaculture?” This discussed the activities of the EURASTIP project in establishing National Pilot Platforms (NPPs) for aquaculture in Thailand, Vietnam and Bangladesh. Whilst the project was inspired by the success of the European Aquaculture Technology & Innovation Platform and regional mirror platforms in Europe, each of the Asian platforms developed along different lines, facing different challenges.

David Little presents on Stakeholder engagement in aquaculture development through the EURASTIP project

The key steps in the process were;

Characterise and map stakeholder interactions in Asian partner countries
Assist the establishment of NPPs in each Asian partner country
National working groups established by each NPP to contribute to 2030 Vision and Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda (SRIA)
Events and demonstrations of existing best practice in relation to NPP activities
Roadmap models developed to establish similar NPPs throughout SE Asia

The seminar was part of a day of activities on stakeholder involvement for the MSc students studying an advanced module on Business and Sector Management. This covered topics such as stakeholder identification and relationship mapping, stakeholder roles, problem framing and private sector representation.

MSc students discuss stakeholder roles and linkages