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Over the last three decades participatory research processes have informed much international development and conservation work in developing countries. Public participation is also a growing legislative requirement in natural resource and environmental management in developed countries. So far, multiple participatory approaches have been formulated and applied in different contexts, including so-called participatory modelling methods. The latter have developed alongside a growing unease and fundamental critique of the participatory approaches and their theoretical underpinnings. One of the central themes running through the critique is the naïveté with which complexities of power relations are assumed to be understood and addressed in participatory approaches. The critique also highlights the danger that participatory approaches become legitimising instruments that simply maintain and reinforce existing power relations. In this paper we engage with the critical literature in the hope of drawing lessons and requirements for participatory modelling. We also empirically evaluate participatory modelling case studies with regard to the fundamental critique. While we do not agree with some demands from the critique that imply abandoning the whole participatory enterprise, we suggest that claims to participatory modelling be taken seriously and that each claim be accompanied by critical reflection. Based on a review of the literature we suggest initial set of questions towards developing a framework for critical reflection.

Over the last three decades participatory research processes have informed much international development and conservation work in developing countries. Public participation is also a growing legislative requirement in natural resource and environmental management in developed countries. So far, multiple participatory approaches have been formulated and applied in different contexts, including so-called participatory modelling methods. The latter have developed alongside a growing unease and fundamental critique of the participatory approaches and their theoretical underpinnings. One of the central themes running through the critique is the naïveté with which complexities of power relations are assumed to be understood and addressed in participatory approaches. The critique also highlights the danger that participatory approaches become legitimising instruments that simply maintain and reinforce existing power relations. In this paper we engage with the critical literature in the hope of drawing lessons and requirements for participatory modelling. We also empirically evaluate participatory modelling case studies with regard to the fundamental critique. While we do not agree with some demands from the critique that imply abandoning the whole participatory enterprise, we suggest that claims to participatory modelling be taken seriously and that each claim be accompanied by critical reflection. Based on a review of the literature we suggest initial set of questions towards developing a framework for critical reflection.

Over the last three decades participatory research processes have informed much international development and conservation work in developing countries. Public participation is also a growing legislative requirement in natural resource and environmental management in developed countries. So far, multiple participatory approaches have been formulated and applied in different contexts, including so-called participatory modelling methods. The latter have developed alongside a growing unease and fundamental critique of the participatory approaches and their theoretical underpinnings. One of the central themes running through the critique is the naïveté with which complexities of power relations are assumed to be understood and addressed in participatory approaches. The critique also highlights the danger that participatory approaches become legitimising instruments that simply maintain and reinforce existing power relations. In this paper we engage with the critical literature in the hope of drawing lessons and requirements for participatory modelling. We also empirically evaluate participatory modelling case studies with regard to the fundamental critique. While we do not agree with some demands from the critique that imply abandoning the whole participatory enterprise, we suggest that claims to participatory modelling be taken seriously and that each claim be accompanied by critical reflection. Based on a review of the literature we suggest initial set of questions towards developing a framework for critical reflection.

This transdisciplinary research case study sought to disrupt the usual ways public participation shapes future energy systems. An interdisciplinary group of academics and a self-assembling public of a North English town co-produced 'bottom-up' visions for a future local energy system by emphasizing local values, aspirations and desires around energy futures. The effects of participatory modelling are considered as part of a community visioning process on participants' social learning and social capital. This paper examines both the within-process dynamics related to models and the impact of the outside process, political use of the models by the participants. Both a numerical model (to explore local electricity generation and demand) and a physical scale model of the town were developed to explore various aspects of participants' visions. The case study shows that collaborative visioning of local energy systems can enhance social learning and social capital of communities. However, the effect of participatory modelling on these benefits is less clear. Tensions arise between 'inspiring' and 'empowering' role of visions. It is argued that the situatedness of the visioning processes needs to be recognized and integrated within broader aspects of governance and power relations.

This paper suggests that computer simulation modelling can offer opportunities for redistributing expertise between science and affected publics in relation to environmental problems. However, in order for scientific modelling to contribute to the coproduction of new knowledge claims about environmental processes, scientists need to reposition themselves with respect to their modelling practices. In the paper we examine a process in which two hydrological modellers became part of an extended research collective generating new knowledge about flooding in a small rural town in the UK. This process emerged in a project trialling a novel participatory research apparatus—competency groups—aiming to harness the energy generated in public controversy and enable other than scientific expertise to contribute to environmental knowledge. Analysing the process repositioning the scientists in terms of a dynamic of 'dissociation' and 'attachment', we map the ways in which prevailing alignments of expertise were unravelled and new connections assembled, in relation to the matter of concern. We show how the redistribution of knowledge and skills in the extended research collective resulted in a new computer model, embodying the coproduced flood risk knowledge.

AbstractSeveral authors have described the usefulness of participatory system dynamics approaches in environmental decision‐making processes, particularly in supporting problem scoping and policy analysis. This paper explores how these approaches may be expanded to provide a coherent, deliberative platform, which structures Integrated Sustainability Assessments (ISA) of policy proposals. The proposed ISA framework forms a five‐stage feedback and learning process including scoping, visioning, model building, simulation/assessment and monitoring. We discuss these elements considering a set of best practice principles for participation in environmental assessment and decision making. Subsequently, we lay out a roadmap for implementing and testing the framework. We conclude that participatory modelling has a strong potential for supporting ISA processes. It allows stakeholders to build alternative policies, to reflect on their long‐term dynamics, and to gain insights on the interrelationships underlying persistent sustainability problems. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

N° ISBN - 978-2-7380-1284-5 ; International audience ; The Thai rice seed system is undergoing an important reform. In this context, we organised a series of participatory modelling sessions with stakeholders to elicitate farmers' needs and decision making processes concerning rice varieties and seeds supply in Ubon Ratchathani province. A conceptual model in UML diagrams was produced and partly implemented as an ABM. The ABM models on a yearly time step the requirements and the allocation of seeds for the two main varieties between farmers and public or private institutions at village, district, and provincial levels. A prototype model was presented and discussed with representatives of the main institutions concerned by the current reform. After this validation by users, they proposed possible future scenarios to be simulated and assessed with them.

N° ISBN - 978-2-7380-1284-5 ; International audience ; The Thai rice seed system is undergoing an important reform. In this context, we organised a series of participatory modelling sessions with stakeholders to elicitate farmers' needs and decision making processes concerning rice varieties and seeds supply in Ubon Ratchathani province. A conceptual model in UML diagrams was produced and partly implemented as an ABM. The ABM models on a yearly time step the requirements and the allocation of seeds for the two main varieties between farmers and public or private institutions at village, district, and provincial levels. A prototype model was presented and discussed with representatives of the main institutions concerned by the current reform. After this validation by users, they proposed possible future scenarios to be simulated and assessed with them.

N° ISBN - 978-2-7380-1284-5 ; International audience ; The Thai rice seed system is undergoing an important reform. In this context, we organised a series of participatory modelling sessions with stakeholders to elicitate farmers' needs and decision making processes concerning rice varieties and seeds supply in Ubon Ratchathani province. A conceptual model in UML diagrams was produced and partly implemented as an ABM. The ABM models on a yearly time step the requirements and the allocation of seeds for the two main varieties between farmers and public or private institutions at village, district, and provincial levels. A prototype model was presented and discussed with representatives of the main institutions concerned by the current reform. After this validation by users, they proposed possible future scenarios to be simulated and assessed with them.

Zoonoses–infectious diseases communicable between animals and humans–, drug resistance and environmental pollution are now causing serious health problems worldwide. These problems are closely tied to global environmental and socio-economic changes and to the transformation of production systems at the territorial level. In this context, health management is becoming a complex issue: it needs to be addressed in close collaboration with the public veterinary health, agriculture and environment sectors. New uncertainties are emerging, and non- conventional actors are entering the scene along-side the decision-makers traditionally responsible for public health. The participatory modelling and simulation approach incorporates the diverse knowledge of all of these actors. It reveals uncertainties and teaches participants how to manage them, to make decisions and to share responsibility. It constitutes a practical solution to ensure health issues are better integrated into territorial planning policies.

The need to understand what might constitute best practice in participatory methods for resource management is becoming ever more important as the requirement for a high level of participation becomes prescribed in the environmental directives of the EU and elsewhere. Since there are numerous potential stakeholders who may participate, various different goals of participation and many potential participatory methods designed to achieve them, there is a need for better understanding of how the methods can be practicably applied to particular stakeholders and for what purpose. As input into this process, this paper presents an overview of four natural resource management projects carried out using participatory modelling methods involving stakeholders in the co-design and social learning of management solutions. From these case studies, a description is elicited of the different types of participatory process structures adopted, as well as an analysis of the influences behind the selection of stakeholders and their level of involvement. Six influences in the design of such structures are identified and illustrated with examples: project goals, democratic participatory goals, existing power structures, stakeholder numbers, researchers' normative beliefs and the scale at which decisions need to be supported. These influences place limits on the freedom of practitioners to develop the type of processes they might otherwise intend. Classification of the process structures according to the level of involvement of stakeholders and their scale of action leads to a discussion about a particular problem of co-design processes: a scale of action mismatch. That is, some process structures, due to the influences mentioned above, end up not involving all the necessary decision makers in the co-design of management solutions. As a result, there has to be additional methods employed to ensure that the results of co-design, i.e. a set of management options, can be passed on to and adopted by excluded decision makers. The paper concludes by briefly looking at examples of possible methods, such as process extensions, e.g., consultation meetings and information campaigns, and the adoption of institutional safeguards.