The reflective futures practitioner: Balancing salience, credibility and legitimacy in generating foresight knowledge with stakeholders

Kunseler, Eva; Tuinstra, W.; Vasileiadou, Eleftheria; Petersen, Arthur C.

doi:10.1016/j.futures.2014.10.006

Cited by 118 publications

(77 citation statements)

References 53 publications

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“…Petersen et al, 2011). PBL practitioners acknowledge the added value of stakeholder participation, for instance, but are in doubt about the quality impact this may have (Kunseler et al, 2015). They pragmatically pursue a strategy of bridging innovative ambitions with institutionalized practices; and in this way attempt to work effectively under the coexistence of modernist and reflexive ideals within the organization (Kunseler and Vasileiadou, accepted for publication).…”

Section: Case Introduction and Research Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

Revealing a paradox in scientific advice to governments: the struggle between modernist and reflexive logics within the PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency

Kunseler

2016

Palgrave Commun

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While governmental scientific advisers attempt to innovate their practices to become more reflexive and interactive, they cannot escape the modernist fundaments that constitute these practices. How do governmental scientific advisers make sense of this paradoxical situation? Using the transition process in the PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency as a paradigmatic case, this article explores how four actor groups—the PBL management team, clients, PBL practitioners and external peers—involved in PBL’s transition process disclose their views on institutional redesign and, while doing that, express their beliefs on what they think scientific advice “is” and “should do”. Frame analysis identifies three coexisting frames of PBL’s (future) role and identity—PBL as integrated assessment specialist, PBL as think tank and PBL as trustworthy expert. Implicated in these frames are reflexive beliefs in a “professional culture of humility” that seem to replace the modernist “science speaking truth to power” mode of advising in the PBL organization. At the same time modernist beliefs in the science/politics demarcation, objectivity and scientific privilege persist, in part by revisiting them in view of the newly found reflexive principles of humility, transparency and deliberation. In conclusion, this empirical work illustrates how questioning and deliberating about the role and identity of one’s own organization is the first step to advance institutional redesign in scientific advice to governments. The challenge for governmental science advisers is to “translate” processes of institutional redesign into concrete social and cultural changes, bringing about a transformation in conceptions of what scientific advice is and should do all along. This article is published as part of a thematic collection on scientific advice to governments.

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Section: Case Introduction and Research Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

Revealing a paradox in scientific advice to governments: the struggle between modernist and reflexive logics within the PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency

Kunseler

2016

Palgrave Commun

Self Cite

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“…We used four criteria to evaluate the potential of our research to bridge the divide of science and nonscience by means of a survey (credibility, salience, legitimacy, and capacity building) that have been applied in a number of studies before (e.g., Chaudhury et al 2013, Kunseler et al 2015.…”

Section: Strengths and Limitations Of The Applied Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Another potential weakness of the sampling procedure is the background of the researchers. Because of the range of knowledge, interests, interpretations, and expertise, and the norms for evaluating the credibility, legitimacy, and salience, the acceptance of produced knowledge varies among actors with different professional backgrounds (White et al 2010, Kunseler et al 2015. The majority of researchers of the survey had an environmental background, a tendency that was also observed in the workshops.…”

Section: Strengths and Limitations Of The Applied Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Systematic evaluation of scenario assessments supporting sustainable integrated natural resources management: evidence from four case studies in Africa

Reinhardt¹,

Liersch²,

Abdeladhim³

et al. 2018

E&S

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ABSTRACT. Scenarios have become a key tool for supporting sustainability research on regional and global change. In this study we evaluate four regional scenario assessments: first, to explore a number of research challenges related to sustainability science and, second, to contribute to sustainability research in the specific case studies. The four case studies used commonly applied scenario approaches that are (i) a story and simulation approach with stakeholder participation in the Oum Zessar watershed, Tunisia, (ii) a participatory scenario exploration in the Rwenzori region, Uganda, (iii) a model-based prepolicy study in the Inner Niger Delta, Mali, and (iv) a model coupling-based scenario analysis in upper Thukela basin, South Africa. The scenario assessments are evaluated against a set of known challenges in sustainability science, with each challenge represented by two indicators, complemented by a survey carried out on the perception of the scenario assessments within the case study regions. The results show that all types of scenario assessments address many sustainability challenges, but that the more complex ones based on story and simulation and model coupling are the most comprehensive. The study highlights the need to investigate abrupt system changes as well as governmental and political factors as important sources of uncertainty. For an in-depth analysis of these issues, the use of qualitative approaches and an active engagement of local stakeholders are suggested. Studying ecological thresholds for the regional scale is recommended to support research on regional sustainability. The evaluation of the scenario processes and outcomes by local researchers indicates the most transparent scenario assessments as the most useful. Focused, straightforward, yet iterative scenario assessments can be very relevant by contributing information to selected sustainability problems.

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“…The engineering student facilitators are asked to describe how they guided the formulation of problem statements and lead the participants to develop and reformulate sub-questions relating to the overall problem statement during the workshop. One of the main challenges in this respect is to help participants make tacit anticipation and knowledge explicit (Kunseler et al, 2015;Taylor et al, 2015;Rasmussen a, 2011;Polanyi, 1966). In other words, the engineering students are asked to describe if and how they learned to use written, oral, graphical and electronic modes of communication to guide the workshop participants' emerging understanding of the problem.…”

Section: Cognitive Facilitator Skillsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Learning facilitating leadership

Rasmussen

Hansen

2016

Studies in Higher Education

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The reflective futures practitioner: Balancing salience, credibility and legitimacy in generating foresight knowledge with stakeholders

Abstract: Please cite this article as: E.-M. Kunseler, W. Tuinstra, E. Vasileiadou, A.C. Petersen, The reflective futures practitioner: balancing salience, credibility and legitimacy in generating foresight knowledge with stakeholders, Futures (2014), http://dx.

Cited by 118 publications

References 53 publications

Revealing a paradox in scientific advice to governments: the struggle between modernist and reflexive logics within the PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency

Revealing a paradox in scientific advice to governments: the struggle between modernist and reflexive logics within the PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency

Systematic evaluation of scenario assessments supporting sustainable integrated natural resources management: evidence from four case studies in Africa

Learning facilitating leadership

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