5. Conclusion
Participation is still in development, from the conceptual as well as from the technical point of view. It is a complex system, with multiple purposes, interactions, meanings, degrees of involvement, methods, and solutions that are specific to each context and project. The result of this state-of-the-art overview of methods is the proposed framework for stakeholder participation. Its main strengths are its adaptability to different contexts, its holistic nature, its ability to integrate social and technical sciences, and its combination of these with practical participatory tools. Experiences and lessons from the case study in Switzerland show the importance of:
The identification not only of the current stakeholders, but alsothe potential ones
The specific attribution of degree of involvement taking into account the heterogeneity of the stakeholders
The adequacy of the stakeholders input for the design of technical solutions.
On the other hand, the evaluation identifies some challenges in participation implementation. One of them is the need to invest enough time and thought in the planning phase, in order to minimize the risks mentioned in the paper.