Decision support methodology for complex contexts

Abstract

Complex decision contexts involving multiple (and often competing) policy objectives are common in both strategic and operational decisions encountered in engineering projects or programmes. The need to consider multiple objectives and to address the concerns of diverse stakeholders raises particular difficulties in applying sustainable development principles to defining and choosing an optimum project, process, product, policy or solution. This paper derives some fundamental characteristics of appropriate support for sustainable development decisions. Using these characteristics, three methodologies, which have been proposed as support tools for making strategic decisions and assessing policy choices for their contributions towards sustainable development, are reviewed critically with reference to their theoretical basis and informed by case studies of engineering applications. Recommendations are made to support best practice and to develop more effective support for such decisions in future

Quality criteria and indicators for responsible research and innovation: learning from transdisciplinarity

“…see Sarewitz 2005, 2011) and formalized processes of stakeholder consultation through methods of multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) (e.g. see Petrie et al 2004;Burgess et al 2007;Elghali et al 2008). Each of these approaches has also been considered and discussed in relation to nanotechnology as a particular case of interest (see Groves et al (2011) and Kuzma and Kuzhabekova (2011) for CSR;Linkov et al (2007) and Linkov and Seager (2011) for MCDA;and Slade (2011) for PVM).…”

Halstar: systems engineering for sustainable development

“…Sustainability can be described as an emergent property of complex systems -the overall sustainability of a project or process depends on the causal relationships between the issues and impacts involved in that context, and cannot be determined by looking at individual impacts in isolation (Elghali et al, 2008;Godfrey, 2006).…”

Recommendations for assessing materials criticality

“…Considering how the results of criticality assessments are used in decision making highlights how criticality exhibits some of the characteristics of a 'complex context', discussed by Elghali et al (2008) as a common feature of decisions that involve evaluations related to sustainability. In particular, materials criticality (from Elghali et al, 2008) g is characterised by a dynamic system of problems with emergent properties that could not be produced by one part of the system alone g involves social aspects that need to be adequately considered alongside technical ones g requires different interpretations of the problem dependent on the context g has a degree of 'post-normality', where values guide outcomes as well as scientific certainty.…”

“…In particular, materials criticality (from Elghali et al, 2008) g is characterised by a dynamic system of problems with emergent properties that could not be produced by one part of the system alone g involves social aspects that need to be adequately considered alongside technical ones g requires different interpretations of the problem dependent on the context g has a degree of 'post-normality', where values guide outcomes as well as scientific certainty. Elghali et al (2008) also identify attributes of effective decision support in complex contexts, stating that any approach, among other things, must g explicitly include considerations for uncertainty arising from incomplete information g involve all relevant stakeholders within decision making, in particular those who can provide first-hand experience of a problem g recognise multiple criteria and how they contribute to an assessment g be adaptable to changing situations and outcomes, providing an audit trail of decisions made and why.…”