As current challenges become more complex, bringing together people from different backgrounds to solve multifaceted problems has become crucial in the STEM field. There is growing recognition of the need to explicitly teach students the skills necessary to conduct inter- and transdisciplinary science, including communication, collaboration, reflection, and understanding of the research process. This set of skills is complex and requires acquiring knowledge and practice and changing attitudes. Moreover, these processes also require the cultivation of emotional skills, which are often neglected in the STEM field, especially in project-based learning programs that primarily emphasize technical expertise. As educators, we recognize our need to develop these competencies as well. This case study reports on the co-creation journey of an education program designed to teach collaboration with a strong emotional intelligence component in biomedical research to bachelor’s students while providing them with a project to practice. This program also provides an environment for scientists, PhD students, and us as an education design team to improve our skills. We report on what we have done and learned from each other and our students in 360º education, including the program design process evaluation, which tends to be overlooked in the development process of such educational programs.

Decision-making in the context of the mobility transition requires considering complexity, many actors, and uncertainty about the future. So, choosing effective policies to achieve a more sustainable system is challenging. We build on participatory modeling and decision-making under deep uncertainty to create a novel approach to investigate the capabilities of decision-makers to interact with an agent-based model to explore various transport policies. This paper reports the results of two workshops with students exploring the mobility transition for a fictional version of a city in the Netherlands The participants made decisions in the role of either government or transport provider and evaluated the systemic impact of those decisions. We found that the participants were well-equipped to deliberate policy options under deep uncertainty using model simulations depicting a range of possible outcomes under different scenarios, embracing uncertainty in some respects and ignoring it in others. This study demonstrates the potential of participatory model-based exploration for mobility transitions to deliberate policy options under uncertainty using an agent-based model.

The Delft Method for System Dynamics (SD) is a proven method for learning basic SD. The method focuses on learning by doing: first you try to work through an exercise, and if you do not understand something, then you can look up the theory. The book contains exercises on topics such as causal loop diagrams, delays, and when SD is an appropriate methodology. It also contains modelling exercises that show students how to build low to medium complexity models, and how to use these models for policy analysis. The theory chapters cover all phases of the modelling cycle: problem articulation, conceptualisation, formulation, evaluation (including validation and scenario analysis), and policy analysis. This book is intended for students and teachers in large or small System Dynamics courses, and for motivated students that want to learn SD at their own pace.

Sea level rise (SLR) will affect Europe's coasts over the coming decades and beyond, giving rise to ongoing challenges in governing coastal and marine areas. Progress is being made in adapting to and addressing these challenges at both national and sub-national levels across all major European sea basins. This paper assesses progress in coastal adaptation governance in Europe by, first, characterising the socio-economic and political contexts in European sea basins and then by reviewing coastal-adaptation-relevant policy frameworks in place at regional and national levels within each of these sea basins. The regional frameworks reviewed are derived from regional sea conventions and are assessed for their legal status and their inclusion of SLR information. The national coastal policy frameworks reviewed include national adaptation plans focusing on coastal areas and marine spatial planning instruments for all European member states, as well as public financing arrangements for coastal adaptation, focusing on flood risk reduction measures. Key national policies for coastal adaptation are assessed for which coastal hazards they address, the extent to which they incorporate sea level rise information and their inclusion of SLR-specific adaptation measures. Finally, the paper presents governance challenges that arise due to the complexity of adaptation to SLR, i.e. time horizon and uncertainty, cross-scale and cross-domain coordination, and equity and social vulnerability, and discusses examples illustrating how each of these challenges is being addressed in different European sea basins. The paper finds that for all basins, regional policy frameworks generally do not include specific provisions for SLR or coastal adaptation, while at the national level, significant progress on SLR governance is being made. For all basins except for the Black Sea, all countries have reported observed and future SLR hazards and have adopted adaptation strategies. The inclusion of adaptation measures specific to SLR is less advanced, as most sea basins have at least one country that does not include specific SLR adaptation measures in either their adaptation strategies or their marine spatial plans. Regarding SLR governance challenges, key examples of how these are being addressed include approaches for incorporating flexibility into coastal planning, e.g. dynamic adaptation pathways in the Netherlands or dike crest widening in Germany, as well as co-development of nature-based adaptation solutions in Italy. Examples of addressing equity and social vulnerability challenges include the emerging issue of climate ligation illustrated through several court cases on liability for SLR-related damage.

Many European cities are investigating how to transition to climate-neutral transport systems. Due to the transport system's complexity and uncertainty about the future, identifying drivers and choosing effective policies to make the city more sustainable is challenging. Additionally, the chosen policies need to be supported by relevant actors. This study aims to support the municipality of The Hague in generating robust policies supported by and within the municipality. We build on participatory modeling and decision-making under deep uncertainty to create a novel approach to address this goal. In two workshops, the participants formulated goals and objectives, created Causal Loop diagrams, and identified potential interventions. Using a set of possible futures, the interventions were then stress-tested to evaluate their robustness. By explicitly linking, for the first time, participatory modeling and decision-making under deep uncertainty approaches, the participants could understand the system better and deal with uncertainty. Participants gained insight into systemic complexity and methods to deal with it, the inter-relatedness of interventions and their effects, and a shared understanding of the problem and its scope. This study demonstrates the potential of a novel approach to generate supported robust interventions to achieve the goal of a climate-neutral transport system.

In the context of a growing emphasis on research and application of citizen engagement methods in environmental planning and management (e.g. Reed 2008; Von Korff et al. 2010), we compare three collaborative activities aimed at finding innovative coastal policy solutions in the Netherlands. In these activities, participants across the citizen, science and policy divide were involved in designing nature-based interventions for specific areas in the Netherlands. The activities are compared in terms of the theoretical promise stakeholder engagement holds for influencing participants’ understanding of the respective bio-geophysical systems, the actor networks and for effecting knowledge sharing. We find local knowledge offers the potential for crafting coastal policy solutions to fit the specific bio-geophysical and societal context. The empirical analysis revealed the deep competence of local people, who generally understand their lived environment in a systemic way, and the knowledge that can be harvested to broaden and enrich the design space for coastal solutions–in addition to a willingness on the part of the stakeholders to collaborate in developing local solutions for sustainable futures. Although measures to reduce power differences and enable local knowledge inclusion served to broaden the design space for innovative solutions in our case studies, they also constrained the scientific and technical quality of the contributions from professional experts such as bio-geophysical scientists, engineers, spatial planners and policy analysts. As such, future work addressing the dilemma of integrating high quality professional inputs into coastal policy solutions founded on local expertise is advocated.

Texel Inlet represents a case study in Dutch coastal management. The imperative to
protect the Dutch coast from flooding has been the central issue in coastal management
for centuries. The damming in 1932 of the Zuiderzee, a major salt water branch of the
Dutch Wadden Sea, formed a fresh water lake –the IJsselmeer – and initiated a process
of coastal sedimentary readjustment of which the Texel Inlet and adjacent coasts are
parts. However, since 1990 Dutch coastal policy is aimed at preventing structural erosion
by maintaining the Dutch coastline at the 1990 position through sand nourishments.
This objectives-based policy and associated sand nourishment strategy now ensures that
south west Texel receives a large portion of the national sand nourishment budget as it
is an erosion hotspot. In this case study, we focus on the evolution of integrated flood
risk management at Texel Island, showing how scientific insights into coastal dynamics
have influenced coastal policy in the past (section 2.4), and how recent advancements in knowledge on the natural dynamics of the system (section 2.3) and on the importance
of stakeholder involvement in environmental management, may play a role in a potential
adaptation of the policy (section 2.5). In essence, the Texel Inlet case study highlights how
a single issue – flood risk management – can dominate in determining the objectives for
coastal management, and highlights the role that new scientific insights can potentially
play in influencing coastal management into the future.

In this research, we set out to investigate the phenomenon of ‘co-design’ and explore the applicability of co-design in the complex coastal context. We have turned to investigating design-oriented, collaborative activities aimed at innovative coastal solutions (co-design) and how they strengthen the development of solutions for coastal problems. Co-design provides a means of realising various ends. We observed, for instance, co-design activities with the goal of collaboratively designing engineering solutions to coastal problems. In other situations, the goals of the co-design activities were wider or were aimed at adapting policy. In general, we see that co-design activities aid in identifying (value) dilemmas, clarifying the diversity in actor perspectives, and broadening the potential space for solutions. Co-design activities ideally give different actors the room to work together in a creative and open manner. Local, scientific, practice-based and other forms of knowledge are ideally used in an egalitarian fashion in the search for solutions to coastal management problems. The thesis ‘co-design in the coastal context’ contributes to insights in how to design the co-design activities, reflects upon insights offered by a broad range of literature on co-design in complex systems, and offers usable and practical methods to evaluate such co-design activities.

The long tradition of water management in the Netherlands went hand in hand with a long tradition of collaboration and a Dutch culture of making compromises. In this paper, we identify a number of practically recognizable criteria for evaluating collaborative design processes for problems within the coastal context. First, by examining the theoretical roots in literature. Second, experiential lessons drawn from a stakeholder-inclusive knowledge intervention on coastal management on Texel, the Netherlands. Insights are used to substantiate criteria for evaluating collaborative design processes in coastal management. By expressing our suite of theory-based and experiential-based criteria, we seek to collate these findings into an aggregated framework of a co-design process, and so to contribute to the enhancing the embedding of the concept of “co-design in coastal systems”.

This paper describes lessons learned while teaching Advanced System Dynamics, at the Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management at Delft University of Technology. The course is an elective for Master students of the faculty who are already familiar with system dynamics modelling. We report on the course in the academic year 2014-2015, the first year in which a new teaching style was adopted - a “flipped classroom” approach was employed. In particular, the student and teacher evaluations of this approach which places student learning centrally are discussed. Conclusions on the usefulness and the role of flipping the classroom in system dynamics modelling are drawn. Further, this document includes the full lesson plan, and can be useful for other system dynamics teachers who are interested in adopting an active learning approach.

The field of coastal management is characterized by a strong collaborative tradition and a willingness on the part of the coastal authorities who embrace listening and actively engaging with stakeholders. Nowadays, coastal policy making in the Netherlands is aiming for enhancing collaboration between different types of actors (e.g. local experts, specialized scientists, policy makers), to for integration at the level of the interface between scientific challenges and societal problems. In this paper we report case-specific, participatory co-design process that occurred in Texel, the Netherlands, where local stakeholders were asked to collaboratively design (“co-design”) utopian and dystopian future visions. We applied an action-type method that addresses the need for empirical exploration of underlying stakeholder values. Professionals with specialized expertise joined in transdisciplinary activities for co-design iteratively towards feasible solutions. Final designs were validated by local participants on value-consistency. A number of considerations contributed to the success of this collaborative and transdisciplinary approach: working directly and locally with local stakeholders; appreciating the local knowledge, stakeholder preferences and underlying stakeholder values; prioritizing a multi-directional flow of information; and engaging professional multidisciplinary specialists in the social-ecological system. Experiences gained from this approach can be used as input for next iterations of collaborative design activities, for the Texel coast and elsewhere.

This report is the documentation of the expert co-design workshop on possible futures for South Texel. This workshop is part of a larger research project: “Co-designing coasts using natural Channel-shoal dynamics” (CoCoChannel). The workshop of 9 March is part of a series of co-design workshops. The goal of this series of workshops was to start a dialogue and design solutions with people from different backgrounds and different types of knowledge, regarding the case study of Texel South. In the first workshop, that took place on 2 December, the specific knowledge of the people with personal ties to the island of Texel was used in a collaborative setting to envision distant futures for the island, thus eliciting the values and preferences of these participants. In the second workshop, as documented here, we aim to use the insights from Texel to configure a multi-dimensional space for experts to design feasible and integrated solutions.

As quantitative modelling can be used to build stakeholder understanding for management decisions, and can help build consensus (Stave, 2003), a system dynamics modelling study of the abiotic dynamics of an archetypical small estuary, the Slufter in the Netherlands is formulated. The model is used in combination with an analysis of stakeholders’ values, their perceptions and the multi-functional utility of the Slufter in the design and application of a participatory approach aimed at enhancing the (collaborative) long-term decision-making on the inherently dynamic, coastal nature reserve. In particular, the information derived both from the model and the interviews with stakeholders provides an indication that a shared understanding of the ecological and social functions of the Slufter estuary can be enhanced by integrating a stakeholder approach and problem modelling. Although stakeholders’ opinions changed less than expected, we believe that such an integrated approach can contribute to increasing the effectiveness of problem modelling in multi-actor systems.