Making your research accessible

Stakeholder Mapping

By 25/09/2015

Mapping the stakeholders of research or collaborative projects can be a complex and often time consuming process. There are a plethora of different approaches and tools out there, and lots of detailed manuals and guides. Here at R2A we have collated some of our favourite resources, tools and blogs about stakeholder mapping to help you find the right approach.

  1. R2A’s ‘Stakeholder Analysis: A basic introduction’ outlines the who, what, and why of stakeholder analysis.
  2. This slideshare by Steve Raybould also offers a nice introduction to stakeholder analysis.
  3. R2A’s ‘Social Network Analysis: a basic introduction’ gives the who, what, why and how, of using Social Network Analysis as a tool for mapping networks.
  4. Nyasha Musandu’s blog explains how ‘The road to policy influence begins with mapping
  5. This ‘Introduction to Stakeholder Engagement’ by the IDS gives a succinct overview of various mapping tools and how to go about stakeholder engagement.  
  6. The ODI Manual entitled ‘Planning Tools: Stakeholder Analysis’ is another brief and informative publication about mapping stakeholders.
  7. The TTI PEC toolkit for researchers and communications officers Section on ‘Mapping Target Audiences’ (page 6) by Nick Benequista, offers some tools and plans for holding a mapping workshop within Think Tanks.  
  8. Netmap is a good exercise for starting to analyse the influence of stakeholders and tap into previously uncovered groupings, which can be done individually or as part of a group and ideally with stakeholders present.
  9. The Alignment, Interest Influence Matrix (AIIM) developed by Enrique Mendizabal at ODI is a great tool for plotting your pre-identified stakeholders and arranging them via alignment to your aims, interests and via their ability to change desired outcomes.  
  10. Participatory Impact Pathways Analysis (PIPA) is another participative approach to mapping stakeholders, which is ideally conducted with stakeholders present at the workshop or exercise.  
  11. This Stakeholder Influence Tool from Power Tools developed by the IIED is available in French, Spanish and Portuguese as well as English.
  12. Tools4Dev offer a Stakeholder Mapping Template which can be adapted to your research or project.
  13. There are lots of online tools that you can use to collaborative map stakeholders using interactive software, which are suited to disaggregated, collaborative research projects. Some examples include Group Map for collaborative mapping and Mind Tools which is an interactive app.
  14. This blog by Laura ffrench-Constant explores some of the ‘Problems encountered mapping stakeholders’ and offers some tips on overcoming commonly encountered obstacles.

This resource list is intended to be dynamic and updated regularly. We welcome your input and any suggested resources in the comment section below or alternatively, you can tweet them to us via @Research2Action.

Happy Mapping!