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.@en

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.

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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.

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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.@en

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.@en

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. @en

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”.@en

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.@en

Dit document is de documentatie van een co-design workshop die plaatsvond voor het onderzoeksproject CoCoChannel. Het doel van deze workshop is nadrukkelijk om mensen van verschillende achtergronden samen te laten nadenken over de toekomst van de kust van Texel. De deelnemers hebben een persoonlijke band met het eiland Texel en bezitten specifieke en waardevolle kennis over het kustsysteem. Het idee is dat de deelnemers met hun lokale, specifieke kennis en waardering van het gebied in deze workshop tot een rijke oplossing kunnen komen.@en

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.@en