The Maritime Spatial Planning (MSP) Challenge game: Short Sea Shipping (SSS) Edition is a table-top strategy board game, designed for policy-makers and stakeholders involved in MSP, short-sea shipping and the Blue Economy. It is a ‘serious game’, allowing the development of a better understanding of the issues involved in MSP through creative and imaginative role playing, taking into account the relevant professional and personal experience of the players. The authors present and discuss the use of the MSP Challenge board game to test how, and to what extent, the concept can help stakeholders understand Maritime Spatial Planning.
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The MSP Challenge uses game technology and role-play to support communication and learning for Marine/Maritime Spatial Planning. Since 2011, a role-playing game, a board game and a digital interactive simulation platform have been developed. The MSP Challenge editions have been used in workshops, conferences, education, as well as for real life stakeholder engagement. The authors give an overview of the development of the MSP Challenge and reflect on the value of the approach as an engaging and ‘fun’ tool for building mutual understanding and communicating MSP.
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The inherent complexity of planning at sea, called maritime spatial planning (MSP), requires a planning approach where science (data and evidence) and stakeholders (their engagement and involvement) are integrated throughout the planning process. An increasing number of innovative planning support systems (PSS) in terrestrial planning incorporate scientific models and data into multi-player digital game platforms with an element of role-play. However, maritime PSS are still early in their innovation curve, and the use and usefulness of existing tools still needs to be demonstrated. Therefore, the authors investigate the serious game, MSP Challenge 2050, for its potential use as an innovative maritime PSS and present the results of three case studies on participant learning in sessions of game events held in Newfoundland, Venice, and Copenhagen. This paper focusses on the added values of MSP Challenge 2050, specifically at the individual, group, and outcome levels, through the promotion of the knowledge co-creation cycle. During the three game events, data was collected through participant surveys. Additionally, participants of the Newfoundland event were audiovisually recorded to perform an interaction analysis. Results from survey answers and the interaction analysis provide evidence that MSP Challenge 2050 succeeds at the promotion of group and individual learning by translating complex information to players and creating a forum wherein participants can share their thoughts and perspectives all the while (co-) creating new types of knowledge. Overall, MSP Challenge and serious games in general represent promising tools that can be used to facilitate the MSP process.
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Maritime Spatial Planning (MSP) is a complex process involving various actors with deviating viewpoints, perceptions and approaches. This study identifies and explains different viewpoints in northern European MSP processes by contextualizing the different viewpoints of national maritime spatial planners, policymakers, scientists, consultants, and representatives of intergovernmental organizations who are involved in the MSP process. The Q Methodology, a method to study the subjectivity of participants, combines qualitative and quantitative approaches to explore people’s viewpoints has been utilized to identify the different frameworks in MSP. A total of five viewpoints have been conceptualized in MSP, based on 17 participants and 39 statements, that cover the whole range of MSP. Simultaneously, respective factor loadings of participants have been identified. This research proves that there seems to be a limited set of viewpoints among the community, despite the amount of stakeholders, their different backgrounds and origin. Results of this study could help to manage different or even conflicting viewpoints in MSP in the future.
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The 2014 EU Directive on Maritime Spatial Planning (MSP) lays down obligations for the EU Member States to establish a maritime planning process, resulting in a maritime spatial plan by 2020. Consultation should be carried out with local, national and transnational stakeholders. Stakeholder engagement in MSP is complex because of the great number and diversity of maritime stakeholders and the unfamiliarity of some of these stakeholders with MSP and its potential impact. To facilitate stakeholder engagement in MSP, the 'MSP Challenge' table top strategy game was designed and played as part of several stakeholder events in different European countries. The authors study the efficacy of the game for stakeholder engagement. Background and evaluation data of nineteen game sessions with a total of 310 stakeholders with different backgrounds were collected through post-game surveys. Furthermore, the efficacy of the game for stakeholder engagement processes, organised by competent MSP authorities in Scotland and Belgium, is studied in more detail. The results show that the board game, overall, has been a very efficient and effective way of familiarising a great diversity of stakeholders with MSP and to create meaningful interaction and learning among stakeholders in formal planning processes. However, the case studies also show that contextual factors-the level of familiarity with MSP and participants' perception to sustainability-influences the efficacy of the game.
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The Maritime Spatial Planning (MSP) Challenge simulation platform helps planners and stakeholders understand and manage the complexity of MSP. In the interactive simulation, different data layers covering an entire sea region can be viewed to make an assessment of the current status. Users can create scenarios for future uses of the marine space over a period of several decades. Changes in energy infrastructure, shipping, and the marine environment are then simulated, and the effects are visualized using indicators and heat maps. The platform is built with advanced game technology and uses aspects of role-play to create interactive sessions; it can thus be referred to as serious gaming. To calculate and visualize the effects of planning decisions on the marine ecology, we integrated the Ecopath with Ecosim (EwE) food web modeling approach into the platform. We demonstrate how EwE was connected to MSP, considering the range of constraints imposed by running scientific software in interactive serious gaming sessions while still providing cascading ecological feedback in response to planning actions. We explored the connection by adapting two published ecological models for use in MSP sessions. We conclude with lessons learned and identify future developments of the simulation platform.
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Maritime Spatial Planning (MSP) is a politically guided and stakeholder-driven process involving a range of actors (i.e., planners, stakeholders, scientists, and citizens). Theories of boundary objects offer a lens to understand how actors, in the context of decision and policy-making in organizations, can coordinate without consensus. This seems particularly relevant when institutions and communities are relatively young, and the body of knowledge is fragmented and fluid, such as in the case of MSP. A key question is whether, and how boundary objects can be intentionally designed and used to facilitate social and policy learning in such communities. In this research, the focus is on the use of the MSP Challenge serious games as a boundary object to facilitate learning in ‘Communities of Practice’ (CoP) around MSP. Data were collected through questionnaires of 62 MSP Challenge workshops between 2016 and 2020 with more than 1100 participants. Additionally, 33 interviews with key stakeholders were conducted. The findings show that the MSP Challenge is widely used for various goals and in various settings and that they are interpreted differently by different users. The success of the MSP Challenge relies on the boundary space in which it is implemented, taking into account discrepancies in learning due to variations in the backgrounds and attitudes of the participants towards the object, the activity, and the setting in which it is deployed.
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The interaction of stakeholders is regarded key in modern environmental and spatial planning. Marine/maritime spatial planning (MSP) is an emerging marine policy domain, which is of great interest worldwide. MSP practices are characterized by diverse approaches and a lack of transnational cooperation. Actors with various backgrounds have to identify mismatches and synergies to jointly aim towards coherent and coordinated practices. The ‘Living Q’ is a communication method to make actors aware systematically about their viewpoints in an interactive, communicative and playful environment, while it draws on results of a proceeding ‘Q Methodology’ study. Results from ‘Living Q’ exercises with international expert’s groups from European Sea basins show that the method is capable to foster communication and interaction among actors participating in ‘Living Q’ exercises, while having the potential to generate added value to planning processes by actor interaction in a collaborative setting.
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Digitalization is gaining increasing attention in Higher Education (HE). The integrationof digital tools into instructional settings is particularly challenging, However, it offers manyopportunities to improve the learning process of students, especially in interdisciplinary teachingscenarios such as teaching sustainable usage of space and resources i.e. for the coastal zones and themarine areas. Worldwide, Marine Spatial Planning (MSP) and Integrated Coastal Zone Management(ICZM) are much needed approaches to manage and organize the increasing use of the sea andcoastal areas. Both are complex fields that are attracting more and more attention in interdisciplinaryHE. Correspondingly designed, the module ‘Planning and Management of Coastal Zones and SeaBasins’ at the University of Oldenburg, Germany, provides a case for integrating digital tools intoHE. In 2020, the digital serious game ‘MSP Challenge´ was used in an online learning format. Thisinteractive and collaborative tool supports informed decision making based on real and simulateddata, comparable to business (decision) processes based on environmental information systems(EIS). Therefore, the MSP Challenge game fosters not only the understanding of the complex topicbut additionally methodological skills which can be transferred to the usage EIS. While playing,students become able to (1) evaluate and simulate impacts of uses on coastal and marineenvironments, (2) describe the main interactions in ecosystems, (3) conceptualize information forsectoral or integrated MSP and (4) reflect on the role and use of data. In the presented case masterstudents studying “Water and Coastal Management” participated in the module. Moreover, thedigital serious game and the interdisciplinary topics of MSP and ICZM provides additionalopportunities to explore subtopics (e.g. IT-related) from other disciplinary perspectives.
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The diversity and intensity of human activities in the North Sea region (NSR) and other maritime regions are increasing. This necessitates transboundary coordination at the sea basin level, which is required but yet insufficiently established. Through European co-funded projects, national policymakers, stakeholders, and scientists in MSP are enabled to develop transboundary coordination (TBC) mechanisms. TBC requires, alongside other factors, a form of social and policy learning between these actors in different countries. The NorthSEE project (2016–2022) was an example of such an EU-co-funded project and was aimed at enhancing coherence in MSP processes and plans across the NSR. This article examines the project's key learning outcomes, the role of the MSP Challenge Simulation Platform in supporting these outcomes, and factors that enabled or constrained learning within the project. Data was collected during the project via document analysis, questionnaires from participatory stakeholder workshops, interviews with sixteen project participants and ten workshop participants, and observations. The study highlights that project participants have gained more insight into each other's planning systems, are able to contact each other more easily, and have initiated several follow-up initiatives. Furthermore, it shows that interactive and participatory tools, such as the MSP Challenge Simulation Platform, can contribute to individual and social learning by providing participants with instant feedback on their decisions. These learning outcomes have been influenced by various enabling and constraining conditions, including time, resources, and the differing levels of expertise and knowledge among project partners and participants. Assessing the broader societal impact remains a challenge and warrants further attention.
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