Stakeholder Engagement in Maritime Spatial Planning: The Efficacy of a Serious Game Approach
by
Xander Keijser 1,2,*,
Malena Ripken 3,
Igor Mayer 4
,
Harald Warmelink 4,
Lodewijk Abspoel 5,
Rhona Fairgrieve 6 and
Crawford Paris 7
Xander Keijser 1,2,*,
Malena Ripken 3,
Igor Mayer 4,
Harald Warmelink 4,
Lodewijk Abspoel 5,
Rhona Fairgrieve 6 and
Crawford Paris 7
1
Environmental Policy Group, Wageningen University, Hollandseweg 1, 6706 KN Wageningen, The Netherlands
2
Rijkswaterstaat, Zuiderwagenplein 2, 8224 AD, Lelystad, P.O. Box 2232, 3500 GE Utrecht, The Netherlands
3
COAST—Centre for Environment and Sustainability Research, Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg, P.O. Box 2503, 26111 Oldenburg, Germany
4
Breda University of Applied Sciences, Academy for Digital Entertainment, Monseigneur Hopmansstraat 1, 4817 JT Breda, The Netherlands
5
Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management, Rijnstraat 8, 2515 XP The Hague, P.O. Box 2090, 2500 EX The Hague, The Netherlands
6
Scottish Coastal Forum, Area 1-A South, Victoria Quay, Edinburgh EH6 6QQ, UK
7
School of Geosciences, University of Edinburgh, Drummond Street, Edinburgh EH8 9XP, UK
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Water 2018, 10(6), 724; https://doi.org/10.3390/w10060724
Received: 6 May 2018 / Revised: 25 May 2018 / Accepted: 29 May 2018 / Published: 2 June 2018
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Understanding Game-based Approaches for Improving Sustainable Water Governance: The Potential of Serious Games to Solve Water Problems)
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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Keywords:
Maritime Spatial Planning (MSP); stakeholder participation; serious game; Blue Growth; Good Environmental Status
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This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited
MDPI and ACS Style
Keijser, X.; Ripken, M.; Mayer, I.; Warmelink, H.; Abspoel, L.; Fairgrieve, R.; Paris, C. Stakeholder Engagement in Maritime Spatial Planning: The Efficacy of a Serious Game Approach. Water 2018, 10, 724.
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