NICHE Stakeholder Engagement and Research Translation Best Practices Assessment

This document outlines effective research translation practices for stakeholder engagement that will inform the Stakeholder Engagement Plan for the National Full-Scale Testing Infrastructure for Community Hardening in Extreme Wind, Surge, and Wave Events (NICHE). The goal of NICHE is to provide state-of-the-art research and testing facilities for wind and wave storm hazards. It is important for the research conducted at NICHE to be translated into the following: (1) actionable policy tools and practices that are disseminated and implemented in hazardous coastal areas; (2) commercialization of new engineering technologies and innovations; (3) voluntary adoption of new design tools and methodologies by practitioners. The objective is to enable research translation through multiple pathways to facilitate a more expedient process from discovery to implementation in current practice. To this end, this document outlines benchmarks and strategies that have been identified for the translation of research findings into practical policy implementation.