Procedures: This online survey will ask for feedback on your personal perception of the effectiveness of EIA. We anticipate the survey will take you approximately 10 minutes to complete.

Anonymity and confidentiality: The survey data will be collected through a secure in-house survey platform managed by BlueTek, a consulting firm based in Potchefstroom, South Africa. The response data will be stored on BlueTek’s secure servers. Following this, the data will be uploaded to a secure project OneDrive folder that is accessible only to the research team. The anonymised data will be held securely for ten years as a benchmark for a future survey, and ethical approval will be sought if an additional period of time for storage is considered appropriate beyond ten years. Data will be deleted if additional surveys are no longer required or if ethical approval is not granted. Quantitative data generated through the survey will be presented in aggregate form through summary statistics. Information from open-ended survey questions will be presented as thematic summaries.

At the end of the survey, you will be invited to voluntarily share your e-mail address for further engagement. At this point you will have three options namely:

• Not providing your e-mail address and thereby concluding the survey. In this case your responses will be completely anonymous.
• Providing your e-mail address if you wish for us to send you a summary report. In this case your responses will remain both anonymous and confidential.
• Providing your e-mail address to receive the summary report as well as confirming your willingness to participate in follow-up research (most respondents will not be contacted for this purpose). In this case your e-mail will not be used for any other purposes. However, if you agree to participate in a potential follow-up research, your survey data will remain confidential, but will not be anonymous to the research team (which comprises the technical committee members listed under ‘Survey Team’ on the survey home page).

If you have provided your e-mail address, it will not be connected to your responses in reports, publications, or presentations. After the research has been completed, including any follow up engagement and after the summary report has been emailed to those who requested it, all names and email addresses will be permanently deleted from the remaining data.

Potential risks and benefits: The risks of participating in this survey are low. As with all online activity, however, there is some risk associated with potential information breaches. We will do everything in our power to protect the privacy and confidentiality of your information. There will be no direct benefits of, or compensation for, participation in this research, though your responses will contribute to the development of strategies for improving EIA effectiveness.

Withdrawal: Your participation in this online survey is completely voluntary.  You can end the survey at any time by simply closing your browser. Responses are saved after each page of the survey. If you choose to end the survey by closing your browser, your previous responses cannot be used in the analysis. After submitting your responses, it will not be possible to withdraw your data if you have not indicated a willingness to participate in further surveys as there is no way of connecting the data to individual participants. If you have expressed willingness to participate, you can withdraw data subsequent to submitting your response by emailing the website administrator at  info@eiaeffectivenesssurvey.org.

Dissemination: The survey data will inform the development of workshops and webinars, peer-reviewed publications, conference presentations, briefing notes, and online blogs and magazine articles.

Funding: This research is funded by North-West University, South Africa.

Questions or concerns: If you have any questions about the website, please contact the website administrator as indicated. This research has been approved by the Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences Research Ethics Committee at the North-West University (Ethics Number NWU-01289-24-A9). If you have any concerns or complaints about this research, you may contact Mrs. Madelien Burgers (FNASREC Administrative Officer) at 018-299-4901 or madelien.burgers@nwu.ac.za.

If you do not wish to participate, please close your web browser. By clicking ‘Accept and take the survey’ button, you confirm that that you have understood to your satisfaction the information regarding participation in the research and agree to participate. In no way does this waive your legal rights nor release the researchers, funders, or involved institutions from their legal and professional responsibilities. You are free to withdraw from the research prior to survey completion without prejudice or consequence.