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Background Stakeholder engagement is increasingly recognised as a critical component of innovation governance, sustainability and exploitation within digital agriculture and climate-smart innovation ecosystems. However, many research and innovation projects still approach stakeholder interaction primarily through dissemination-oriented activities rather than as progressively deepening participation processes supporting co-creation, collaborative ownership and long-term ecosystem continuity. This challenge is particularly relevant in AU–EU innovation ecosystems where digital agriculture solutions must operate across diverse institutional, socio-economic and environmental contexts. Method This article proposes and operationalises a Multi-Actor Stakeholder Engagement Progression Model developed within the KijaniSpace Horizon Europe project focused on climate-smart agriculture and aquaculture in the Lake Victoria Basin. The framework conceptualises stakeholder engagement as an adaptive and iterative progression process structured around four interconnected engagement stages: Inform, Consult, Involve and Collaborate. The article combines insights from participatory innovation, Agricultural Innovation Systems, living labs and adaptive governance literature with empirical operationalisation examples from stakeholder engagement activities, workshops, communication channels and ecosystem-building processes implemented within KijaniSpace. Results The operationalisation demonstrated that stakeholder engagement functioned not only as a dissemination mechanism, but also as a learning, co-creation and adaptive governance mechanism. Broad communication activities supported awareness and ecosystem visibility, while consultation activities generated contextual understanding and identification of operational needs and barriers. Co-creation activities strengthened participatory innovation and locally contextualised solution development, whereas collaboration-oriented activities supported ecosystem formation, trust-building, institutional dialogue and sustainability-oriented interaction. The findings further showed that stakeholder progression was dynamic rather than linear, with stakeholders moving between different participation levels according to contextual conditions, institutional roles and innovation readiness. Conclusions The study suggests that progressively deepening stakeholder engagement can strengthen collaborative ownership, adaptive governance, sustainability and exploitation readiness within complex Space–IoT innovation ecosystems. The proposed framework provides a transferable methodological approach for connecting communication, participation, co-creation and long-term ecosystem sustainability in climate-smart agriculture and digital innovation contexts. More broadly, the article argues that stakeholder engagement should be understood not merely as dissemination support, but as a central governance mechanism through which innovation ecosystems are co-created, sustained and embedded into long-term institutional and societal structures.
Tuula-Maija Löytty (Thu,) studied this question.