A participant-structured approach for assessing and addressing the framing of uncertainties

Another article by Nicola Isendahl has just been published on-line in the Journal of Environmental Management. I have been co-supervising her PhD project together with Claudia Pahl-Wostl at the University of Osnabrück. If all goes well, Nicola would be able to graduate in the spring of 2010!

The starting point for Nicola's project is that in order to improve the way uncertainties in water management are dealt with, we need to understand how water managers frame uncertainties. In this paper we present an approach where water managers developed criteria of relevance to understand and address uncertainties. The empirical research took place in the Doñana region of the Guadalquivir estuary in southern Spain making use of the method of card sorting. Through the card sorting exercise a broad range of criteria to make sense of and describe uncertainties was produced by different subgroups, which were then merged into a shared list of criteria. That way framing differences were made explicit and communication on uncertainty and on framing differences was enhanced. In that, the present approach constitutes a first step to enabling reframing and overcoming framing differences, which are important features on the way to robust decision-making. Moreover, the elaborated criteria build a basis for the development of more structured approaches to deal with uncertainties in water management practice.

The article can be found here or downloaded here.

Knowledge for Governance of Climate Adaptation

Knowledge for Climate is a research programme for the development of knowledge and services that make it possible to climate proof the Netherlands. Governmental organisations (central government, provinces, municipalities and water boards) and businesses, actively participate in research programming through the input of additional resources (matching). The overall goal is to assess investments to be made in spatial planning and infrastructure over the coming twenty years in terms of their resistance to climate change, and for making changes where necessary.

Our Public Administration and Policy Group at Wageningen University has brought together a consortium with Utrecht University, VU Amsterdam, Radboud University Nijmegen and Erasmus University Rotterdam, that has submitted the winning pre-proposal for research into the governance of climate adaptation. We are now very busy developing the full proposal, together with regional hotspot partners and our international academic partners: University of East Anglia, Stockholm Resilience Center and Oldenburg University.

The summary of the project pre-proposal reads as follows:

"Climate proofing the Netherlands is not only a technical issue but also a demanding matter of governance. The specific complexities of adaptation governance call for new advanced governance knowledge. This programme will develop and test forms of governance that can contribute to realizing adaptation options, and to increasing the adaptive capacity of society.

The program will be concentrated around four concepts and corresponding work packages:
- organizing connectivity
- (re)allocating responsibilities and risks
- coping with controversies
- normative principles for adaptation

To fulfil the dual ambition of developing practically relevant and scientifically sound knowledge, two supporting methodological work packages will be set up: collaborative action research and comparative analysis across regional and national boundaries. This interdisciplinary programme will result in new insights in climate governance; tested governance strategies, instruments and structures; innovative methods; and international comparison of adaptation efforts between Netherlands, Sweden, Germany and UK."

If all goes well, we could start setting up action research projects on climate adaptation strategies with a group of 8 PhDs, a postdoc and a number of senior researchers from the involved universities, as of March 2010. But first, the full proposal has to worked out, projects have to be defined and substantial co-funding needs to be committed by hotspot partners.

Podocarpus simulation at Wageningen MSP Course

During the past 3-week course on Multi-Stakeholder Processes by CD&IC Wageningen International, coordinated by Jouwert van Geene, I was invited as a guest lecturer to run the Podocarpus National Park simulation. About 30, mainly African and Asian students, did a great job in assuming the roles of farmers, miners, bureaucrats, politicians and ngo workers, resulting in a lively simulation over 6 negotiation rounds. Together with Simone van Vugt, we discussed with the students what could be learned from this experience. We focused on the intricacies of collaborating with a diverse group of stakeholders, representation issues, negotiation strategies, issue framing, power dynamics and the institutionalization of multi-stakeholder domains.

Here's a short video I made about the Podocarpus National Park simulation, using www.animoto.com

MOPAN 2010 at Keele University

At the MOPAN 2009 website the next conference location has been announced:

"The 17th International Conference on Multi-Organisational Partnerships, Alliances & Networks (MOPAN 2010) will be held at Keele University, United Kingdom from 28th - 30th June 2010.

The Conference theme will be "Collaboration: Dynamics, Movement and Transformation"

The Conference will be held together with the ESRC Research Seminar on Collaborative Futures (which will form a stream within the Conference) and the British Academy of Management special Interest Group on Inter-Organisational Relations."

There is more interesting stuff to be found on the 2009 conference website:

- the presentations of the symposium on 'Competing claims on space - Framing interests in multi-actor collaboration' organized by Cycloop can be downloaded

- the conference photos are available

This is a picture of the 'monasterical' lunch room at the MOPAN 2009 conference in Dublin:

Book published on "Transitions towards Sustainable Agriculture"

A new book on Transitions towards Sustainable Agriculture, co-edited by Katrien Termeer, has just been published and presented to the Dutch Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality (LNV). The book brings together insights on a range of transition experiments in food production.

Together with my colleagues at the Public Administration and Policy Group, I wrote an introductory theoretical chapter, comparing transition management theory with an number of other theoretical approaches to change and intervention (including organizational change theories, multi-actor collaboration, network governance, adaptive management, social learning and policy agenda setting theory).
The chapter is entitled "Transition management for sustainability: towards a multiple theory approach". In the conclusion, we argue that a broad base of different (and partially overlapping) theories is needed to address the thorny sustainability challenges, such that multipe insights can be generated and that different approaches can suggest new intervention options where one approach to change runs into trouble.

Here are the details of the book.

Transitions towards sustainable agriculture, food chains and peri-urban areas

Krijn J. Poppe, Katrien Termeer and Maja Slingerland (Eds.)
2009, 392 pages, hardback

Agriculture is changing rapidly. The greatest current challenge to the agricultural sector is for it to become sustainable in all three of the dimensions profit, people and planet. This is certainly the case in highly urbanized countries like the Netherlands, where agriculture is confronted with high land prices, rising consumer concerns for issues like animal welfare and negative environmental effects but also with new demands from the city for recreation, health care and local food products. These are some of the developments in our society that are forcing agriculture to change. The government, farmers, the agri-food industry and the retail sector struggle to meet this challenge and find new forms of governance. In the Netherlands, the government has called for a 'transition towards sustainable agriculture' and it is investing in this programme with its research and education policy. Similar trends have been observed in other countries.

This book presents the expertise that has been accrued from at least five years of Dutch research in this area. The aim is to collate the results of the experiments, to learn from them, to confront them with existing theory and to share them with a larger audience in order to foster learning about transition. Given the leading position of the Netherlands in global agriculture, in a highly urbanized setting, and its leading position in the study of transition theory this should be of significant interest to students and researchers of the transitions in agriculture.

Download table of contents of the book 'Transitions towards sustainable agriculture, food chains and peri-urban areas'. (PDF file)

The book can be ordered on the website of Wageningen Academic Publishers