Book launch
Madrid
February 1, 2023

Background
• Draws on experiences of working with diverse
multi-stakeholder initiatives since mid-1990s
• Seeks to combine academic and practitioner
perspectives
• Explores how far partnership might offer
possibilities for promoting transformation
• Attention to personal and relational aspects of
partnership

Understanding partnership
• Different understandings of partnership
influence how it is put into practice
• Can be understood as instrumental (means to
an end) and intrinsic (end in itself)
• Since 1980s emphasis has been on
mechanistic understanding of partnership
We need to ‘recover’ relational aspects of
partnership and integrate them in collaborative
initiatives
Structures
Values
Processes

Unpacking context
External
context
(Macro level)
Organization
(Meso level)
Individual
(Micro level)
Contextual drivers are overlaid by:
• Pragmatic drivers
Compliance, alignment, results focus,
commitment of resources…
• Reflective drivers
Nexus approaches, attention to process,
experimentation, learning, reflection and
exchange…

Partnership and transformation
• Transformation is about fundamental change in
systems, structures, values, processes,
behaviours, etc.
• Partnership can promote transformation when
it adds value at individual, organisational and
societal levels and combines both pragmatic
and reflective elements
• Exploration of components of different
partnership arrangements could be used for
review and assessment
• Tactical partnership
Partners focus on a specific time-bound
task
• Targeted partnership
Partners work together to pool ‘right’
resources to meet a particular need/task
• Transversal partnership
Partners seek to maximise outcomes
through diverse horizontal interactions
• Transformational partnership
Partners work to achieve systemic change
with careful attention to relational
connections

Transformative participation
• Understanding stakeholders in relation to
participation and power (in different
contexts)
• Transformation and place-based linkages
that connect with policy/macro levels
• Partnership brokering and its role in
enhancing contextual links, reinforcing
inclusion and allowing space for ‘productive
conflict’

Other themes
Co-trends
Platforms
Networks
Collaborative
ecosystems
New
institutions
Consortia
Hubs Dialogues
Social
innovation
Clusters
Communities
of Practice
Partnership - where next?
Other forms of collaboration, core elements and
transformational potential
Partnership, sustainability and citizenship
How they connect to core elements of ‘global
citizenship’
Becoming citizens of the world demands that [we] step away from the comfort of assured truths, from the nestling
feeling of being surrounded by people who share one’s convictions and passions.
Martha Nussbaum

https://www.routledge.com/Partnership-and-Transformation-The-Promise-of-Multi-
stakeholder-Collaboration/Stott/p/book/9781032058337