schakelfiguur

10:33 Jan 13, 2014 

I was also thinking along the lines of one of Barend's suggestions:

'persons who are able to act as an intermediate'

or 'person playing a linking role'

See e.g.: https://www.google.co.uk/search?q="persons playing a linking... (Google search for: " playing a linking role")

'I am playing a linking role for the other farmers groups in the Mount Kenya Producers Association.'

'We welcome the Committees playing a linking role between any macro-prudential supervisory structure, national supervisors and colleges of supervisors as ...'

'Great Britain muffed its chances of playing a linking role between Europe and America and lapsed into a petulant limbo between the two.'

+

JurLex:
schakelfunctie
linking role

een schakelfunctie vervullen = to play a linking role

10:21 Jan 13, 2014 

06:41 Jan 13, 2014 

04:37 Jan 13, 2014 

You could consider such a 'schakelfiguur' to be a 'facilitator'


A facilitator is someone who helps a group of people understand their common objectives and assists them to plan to achieve them without taking a particular position in the discussion. Some facilitator tools will try to assist the group in achieving a consensus on any disagreements that preexist or emerge in the meeting so that it has a strong basis for future action

Facilitators necessarily require authority to chair a meeting, or serve mediator or moderator or arbitrator functions, for instance in managing a progressive stack in which some speakers are preferred over others because they are more affected by a decision or have generally less voice.

See also for different types of facilitators:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facilitator

03:56 Jan 13, 2014 

the brackets deleted the options I had inserted; here they are:
intermediaries, negotiators, go-betweens, liaisons

03:55 Jan 13, 2014 

that I submitted this to the client: "Based on these findings we also regularly organise debates with <<<intermediaries, negotiators, go-betweens, liaisons>>> , where all opinions are welcome."
Yet the client is hoping for a catchier term.

03:46 Jan 13, 2014 

I think you should think in a somewhat different direction. If you do some research on the internet, you will consistently find this pattern:

Ik vind dat er in Brussel dringend moet geïnvesteerd worden in zogenaamde 'schakelfiguren', die de verschillende gemeenschappen met elkaar in contact kunnen brengen.

schakelfiguren - persons who are able to act as an intermediate between several different groups, they understand the positions of each of these groups and know how to build workable relationships between them.

In fact they understand the position of all the stakeholders in the debate but they themselves are above the stakeholder groups

This kind of direction, I think.