The engagement of diverse stakeholders is an increasingly prominent process at the interface between scientific expertise, environmental policy and society. However, despite its importance for sustainability governance, there is still little systematic evaluation of stakeholder engagement activities. This thesis aims to partially fill this research gap, employing a combination of empirical and theoretical methods. The goal is to analyze and evaluate why and how stakeholders are engaged with and

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... how such activities might be improved. Two particular examples of engagement types at the science-policy interface are investigated, providing both a critical analysis and constructive findings for their improvement. Global environmental assessments were analyzed because they are one of the largest scale and most influential scientific policy advisory processes in existence, and smaller-scale deliberation platforms because this is where most experiences with stakeholder engagement have been made and where discussions can be more intensive. In order to strengthen the evaluation of stakeholder engagement activities and discuss constructive means of improvement, first the diversity of objectives and underlying rationales are explored in selected cases. Stakeholder engagement can, for instance, broaden the scope of issues, perspectives and potential solutions considered, increase the quality of decisions ultimately taken, and foster the legitimacy, salience and credibility of the activities and their outcomes. The processes through which different actors can be engaged with at the science-policy interface are then analyzed, and the major challenges facing engagement activities are derived based on an analysis of their practical implications. Finally, the thesis explores promising ways forward for the improvement of stakeholder engagement in global environmental assessments and in deliberation platforms. This is done by reflecting on a feedback loop between the objectives, methods and outcomes of selected processes, with consid [...]