In order to effectively adapt to climate change, public officials and other stakeholders need to rapidly enhance their understanding of local risks and their ability to collaboratively and adaptively respond to them. We argue that science-based role-play simulation exercises — a type of 'serious game' involving face-to-face mock decision-making — have considerable potential as education and engagement tools for enhancing readiness to adapt. Prior research suggests role-play simulations and other serious games can foster public learning and encourage collective action in public policy-making contexts. However, the effectiveness of such exercises in the context of climate change adaptation education and engagement has heretofore been underexplored. We share results from two research projects that demonstrate the effectiveness of role-play simulations in cultivating climate change adaptation literacy, enhancing collaborative capacity and facilitating social learning. Based on our findings, we suggest such exercises should be more widely embraced as part of adaptation professionals' education and engagement toolkits.

An increased focus on ‘policy literacy’ for climate scientists, parallel to ‘science literacy’ for the public, is a critical need in closing the science–society gap in addressing climate mitigation. We define policy literacy as the knowledge and understanding of societal and decision-making contexts required for conducting and communicating scientific research in ways that contribute to societal wellbeing. We argue that current graduate education for climate scientists falls short in providing policy literacy. We identify resources and propose approaches to remedy this, arguing that policy literacy education needs to be mainstreamed into climate science curricula. Based on our experience training science students in global environmental policy, we propose that policy literacy modules be developed for application in climate science curricula, including simulations, case studies, or hands-on policy experiences. The most effective policy literacy modules on climate change will be hands-on, comprehensive, and embedded into scientific education.

In some Canadian provinces, they take what is called Judicial Dispute Resolution (JDR) very seriously. During designated periods each year, litigants can choose to have a judge help them settle their lawsuits in a confidential pre-trial conference.

In the case of Arctic Fisheries, our research team interviewed 45 participants from 12 countries. Interviewees were asked about: (1) new risks to various Arctic fisheries posed by retreating sea ice; (2) strategies for protecting fish stocks; (3) gaps in scientific knowledge; (4) the possible need for new monitoring systems; (5) concerns of indigenous communities; (6) ways of reducing the impact of oil spills that might occur; and (7) the possible need for new treaties or new institutional arrangements. We have grouped interviewee responses into seven stakeholders categories: national governments; fishing industry; oil and gas industry; indigenous peoples and human rights advocates; multilateral institutions; environmental interests; and independent scientists. The national governments stakeholder category is discussed in terms of Arctic five countries (Russia, U.S., Canada, Norway and Denmark, through Greenland and the Faroe Islands) and non-Arctic five countries (Iceland, Finland, and Sweden), as interviewees often referred to states according to these distinctions. Although some of our respondents were women, we have used the pronoun “he” for all interviewees in an effort to maintain anonymity. To avoid confusion, we have used the terms “central Arctic” and “peripheral Arctic” throughout the document to distinguish different regions of the Arctic, as compared to “high Arctic,” “low Arctic,” or other distinctions. We understand these terms mean different things to different people, and we hope our use of these terms accurately captures the intended meaning of our interviewees.

The Arctic Fisheries Devising Seminar brought together 23 people from a wide variety of stakeholder groups to wrestle with these questions. Participants included high-level government policy-makers from various states, regions, and territories, namely Canada, the European Union (EU), the Faroe Islands, Finland, Greenland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden, and the United States; experienced government scientists; key representatives from non-governmental organizations, scientific organizations, and industry; distinguished representatives from Arctic indigenous peoples; and highly regarded scholars and Arctic experts. Participants came with an extremely impressive set of credentials and affiliations. They were asked to engage on equal footing as individuals rather than in their official capacity, and to help generate ideas that would be acceptable to their own constituencies while concurrently addressing the concerns of other stakeholder groups. That is, they were invited to participate in an informal, off-the-record problem-solving exercise. To this end, no comments are attributed to individual participants, nor is anyone identified by name. Instead, this summary reports on the topics introduced, the good ideas that emerged, and points of convergence and divergence among the group.

There are various ways games can be used to inform, and even alter, high-stakes policy negotiations. I’m going to describe several of them below, but this only works when the actual negotiators take part in the game in advance of undertaking their own “real life” interactions. I’m not convinced that the results of role-play simulations involving students or other stand-ins will mean much to senior government representatives.

A New Focus on Adaptation following Hurricane Sandy There are quite a few people in New York and New Jersey who want the government to do something. They want to make sure that the horrendous effects of Hurricane Sandy are not repeated in the years ahead. In the Northeast, the unusual “superstorm” resulted in extensive property loss and more than 100 deaths. Current estimates are that the storm caused more than $60 billion in damage in New York and New Jersey alone. What are the things that local, state, and federal agencies can do to reduce the risks associated with destructive storms?

In this article, I describe my career as a pracademic. Over several decades, I have been able to maintain a substantial private practice in public dispute resolution and also meet the teaching, advising, and research demands of an academic career. I have achieved this by engaging primarily in action research: I begin with “problems” in the field and work collaboratively with stakeholders to generate “solutions” that meet their interests. I then document and analyze these interventions to build prescriptive theory through systematic reflection on my own involvement.

In this article, I discuss how I have been able to achieve success as a “pracademic,” but also consider the challenges that young scholars who seek to engage in practice confront today. I further describe some possible strategies for successfully integrating a substantial practice component into an academic career in conflict resolution.

In most democratic countries, government officials make water-allocation decisions. Citizens depend on these officials and their technical advisors to take account of both technical and political considerations in determining which water uses get priority, what infrastructure investments to make and what water quality standards to apply. In many parts of the world, water users and stakeholders have additional opportunities to comment on such decisions before they are implemented. Under some circumstances, citizens can challenge water management decisions in court. This is not enough. More direct democracy, involving stakeholders before such decisions are made, can produce fairer and increasingly sustainable results. The steps in collaborative adaptive management – a form of stakeholder engagement particularly appropriate to managing complex water networks – are described in this article along with the reasons that traditional forms of representative democracy are inadequate when it comes to water policy.

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