Innovative tools to involve stakeholders in collaborative

efforts to share and discuss uncertainties in DDR and CCA

Experiences and lessons learnt

Lydia Pedoth, Marco Pregnolato & Stefan Schneiderbauer

European Academy Bolzano- EURAC, Italy

In collaboration with SEI Oxford, SEI York

Environment Agency Austria and CIPRA International

Chambery, 27th May 2015

• Co-production of knowledge between scientists and

stakeholders

• Necessity to deal with and act under uncertainty

• Communication of research results to the public

• Deal with complexity and interlinkages within multiple systems

• Knowledge is spread among science and practice

• Different disciplines, backgrounds and actors

• Aim to influence policies and support the decision making process

• Need to foster behavioral change and action on the ground

Challenges

• Inter-and transdisciplinary approaches

• From unidirectional to bidirectional knowledge flows

• Innovative participatory approaches to involve and engage with stakeholders

• Common process for co-production of knowledge

• Shared and trusted knowledge

• Tools and methods for communicating science to the public

• Approaches and tools for “translating” and communicating uncertainty

What do we need?

3 European cooperation projects

• FP7 Project Know4DRR- knowledge for disaster risk reduction

• FP7 Project emBRACE- community resilience to natural hazards

• Alpine Space Project C3 Alps- Capitalizing Climate Change

Knowledge for Adaptation in the Alpine Space

Experiences and lessons learnt

Knowledge mapping

Interviews mapping interactions and communication flows

between risk management actors after a landslide event

Experiences and lessons learnt

• Visualisation and structuring of knowledge

• Shared interactive process between interviewer and interviewee

• Immediate and tangible output

• Look at the created map triggers critical reflection and discussion

about how the network deals with uncertainty

• Different views of the same network

• Method applicable for stakeholders working at different scales

and with different background and responsibilities

Gaming approach

Workshop with scientist and stakeholders

Flood scenario game: How to deal with uncertainty in decision making?

Experiences and lessons learnt

• The gaming approach enabled participants to put themselves in

someone else's situation

• Game created a context free of rules and settings linked to

participants institutional affiliations and roles

• Despite the created game context the approach revealed mechanisms

and situations linked to decision making similar to real situations

• Game helped to grasp the concept of uncertainty

• Discussion about experiences of participants during the gaming

exercise as important part for knowledge creation

Innovative communication tools

Calendar: Climate change adaptation day by day

Experiences and lessons learnt

• Link research results and climate change adaptation to every day life

• Work with key messages and commonly used terminology

• Simple does not mean banal

• Use of graphics for transmitting knowledge

• Importance of collaboration between researcher and graphic designers and

communication experts

• Local language for communication with the public

Conclusions

• Huge range of participatory approaches

• No one size fits it all solution- choice according to context and

type of stakeholders

• Willingness and openness for sharing knowledge

• Acknowledgement and appreciation of different kind of expertise

• Challenges due to different objectives, mindsets and terminology

but also source for innovative and tangible knowledge that can

lead to concrete actions

Thank you for your attention!

Lydia.pedoth@eurac.edu

©Jochen Bürgel; illustration by Simon Kneebone