Stakeholder Engagement as a Design Principle: Orchestrating a Digital Platform for the Safety and Sustainability of the Nanomaterials Sector

The governance of chemicals and nanomaterials presents a critical challenge, as significant uncertainties regarding safety and sustainability match their innovation potential. This creates a “knowledge-­ to-­ action” gap, hindering the practical implementation of safety and sustainability by design (SSbD) principles. While stakeholder engagement is crucial, the literature provides insufficient guidance on how to orchestrate collaboration among diverse actors—such as industry, policymakers, and citizens— who hold fragmented knowledge and divergent interests. This study addresses this gap by employing an 18-­ month action design research methodology to co-­ develop the CheMatSustain Facility, a sustainability-­ oriented digital platform. Through iterative cycles involving a systematic literature review, open surveys, expert focus groups, and co-­ design workshops with over 100 stakeholders, researchers identify core governance barriers and co-­ create a digital artifact to overcome them. Theoretically, this paper advances stakeholder and platform theory by providing a validated empirical model of how a sustainability-­ oriented digital platform can function as a knowledge exchange bridging mechanism. Additionally, this paper further operationalizes stakeholder engagement as a core design principle, detailing the orchestration mechanisms necessary to translate fragmented knowledge into co-­created value. In conclusion, this study presents the CheMatSustain Facility. This co-­ designed digital infrastructure translates abstract SSbD principles into actionable tools for industry, evidence-­ based syntheses for policymakers, and accessible information for citizens, thereby fostering an ecosystem for responsible innovation.