Reflections on Applying Systems Thinking to Stakeholder Mapping: The STOA Unit at the European Parliament

The EU has increasingly embraced foresight—a discipline aimed at enhancing preparedness by systematically exploring plausible futures—to minimise uncertainty and inform anticipatory governance. Within this context, the STOA Unit of the European Parliament has been actively engaged in foresight activities, developing the STEEPED framework for conducting systemic analyses of the ecosystems, in which the innovation, event or crisis is placed. The goal of the STEEPED framework is to offer a comprehensive system view. The STEEPED framework has been employed to guide horizon scanning, trend analyses and stakeholder selection. Specifically, stakeholder engagement is a crucial element in foresight analyses. The effectiveness of foresight analysis largely depends on stakeholders' ability to augment discussions via expertise and lived experiences. We explore how, through the STEEPED framework, STOA has informed foresight analysis and stakeholder mapping in the 10 years since its inception. Although the framework may represent a robust approach to analysis, it could be enhanced by more directly focusing on aspects such as affiliation, stakeholders' features and relations, highlighted in academic research on stakeholder mapping. We propose a novel framework in the form of a checklist that integrates principles from the STEEPED framework with perspectives from scholarly literature.