For our newsletter, we talk to a member of the OR ELSE team about their involvement in the project. This time: Maria Pafi, postdoctoral researcher at Wageningen University and Research. Her work revolves around two key themes: the politics of blue growth and marine spatial planning and the use of simulation games and geospatial technologies for environmental decision-making.
What do you study in your research?
I study institutional learning and change in complex policy domains such as the marine environment. In these domains, decisions must consider climate change, deep uncertainties, and complex risks over time. Within this broader field, I’m particularly interested in how immersive simulations—such as serious games—help people recognise, reflect on, and act on complex decisions under uncertainty. My research asks what these kinds of digital tools can realistically offer to support reflexive knowledge production and governance.
Within the OR ELSE project, we co-create knowledge about the social and ecological impacts of sand extraction. We integrate this knowledge into a serious game focused on sand extraction. The game is designed as a platform for interdisciplinary and cross-sectoral dialogue. The project follows an action research approach. I’m part of the team that develops the game conceptually – deciding what goes into it and what its purpose is—while the interface itself is developed by the team at Breda University of Applied Sciences. At the same time, I analyse how the game functions in practice. This means there are periods where I am actively involved and closely collaborating with OR ELSE researchers, game developers, and other stakeholders, and other periods where I step back to reflect.
How do you remain objective while being part of the process?
That’s always a challenge and the beauty of action research – I try to make good notes and reports about key meetings – especially when these are about co-design. I am transparent about my role and position in the process, and I know that my involvement also shapes the process, so I try to reflect on this. I’m also not working alone. Within our team at the Environmental Policy Group at Wageningen University, different researchers take different perspectives. For example, our PhD researcher Elaine Mumford studies values and knowledge around sand and sandscapes in the Wadden Sea and North Sea. Our work is complementary and through collaboration, we can reflect on what I might otherwise miss by being too much on the “inside”. Our consortium is also multi-disciplinary, so we always discuss conclusions and challenge each other in a productive way.
What makes sand extraction such an interesting case for studying decision-making?
It contains many elements of a “wicked problem.” First, society is highly dependent on sand, for example for coastal protection and construction, yet we rarely realise this. Demand is expected to increase, especially with sea level rise. Second, sand extraction takes place in a very busy part of the North Sea, where it interacts with many other activities such as fisheries, aquaculture, offshore renewable energy, oil and gas, cables, pipelines, and military uses. This creates spatial competition. Third, there are uncertainties about the ecological impacts of long-term sand extraction and the cumulative effects of multiple uses of the sea. Finally, there are many actors involved, operating across sectors and governance levels with different mandates, interests, and time horizons. Some sectors plan far into the future, while others operate on much shorter timelines. This makes coordinated action difficult.
Why are serious games a good tool for studying this complexity?
The complexity is difficult to grasp through abstract discussions alone. Serious games allow participants to explore “what-if” scenarios in an interactive way. Participants can experiment with decisions and receive feedback in real time. While the models are simplified, they make trade-offs more tangible. For example, numbers like “15 million cubic metres of sand extraction per year” are abstract, especially to “outsiders”. In the game, this volume becomes visible as spatial and ecological impacts. You can see how much seabed is removed, where extraction takes place, and which other activities or ecosystems might be affected. This makes the consequences of decisions much more concrete and experiential.
How do you decide which scenarios and choices are included in the game?
That’s a continuous design discussion. We start from the knowledge that already exists in the project and think about how ongoing research can be incorporated. At the same time, we constantly balance complexity and accessibility. During testing sessions, participants sometimes told us that certain aspects became too complex for a game. So we have to decide which elements to prioritise and how much simplification is acceptable.
It’s also important to remember that the game is not neutral. It reflects assumptions and knowledge from the research team. We need to be transparent about that and make clear that the goal is not to provide a policy solution, but to explore different perspectives and open dialogue.
What have you learned so far from using the game?
One important insight is that the act of playing itself shapes the learning process. Even if the game or any other interface or simulation is carefully designed, you cannot fully predict how people will interact with it or with each other. Participants often negotiate in unexpected ways, form surprising alliances, or reframe the questions themselves. That unpredictability is actually part of the value. Another insight is that these serious games are not about entertainment. They require participants to engage with data, models, and each other. The best results occur when the game is embedded in a broader learning process rather than used as a one-off activity.
What do you hope your research will contribute to policy?
My research highlights how interfaces between science and policy function as important sites of knowledge production and governance. This matters for policy because it shows that knowledge does not enter policymaking in a neutral way, but it also speaks to scientists and interface developers, and the strategic role we have by designing such interfaces.
The game is an important tool in the OR ELSE project, but I also use other methods, such as policy analysis, interviews and stakeholder workshops. For example, we recently published a paper analysing policy narratives about sand extraction and what openings for change may exist. And in our workshops, the game is usually only one part of the process. There is often information sharing sessions in the beginning, and in the end, we also reflect more broadly on the barriers that influence decision-making now and in the future. The goal is to explore both the spatial and the institutional challenges and discuss solutions in an interdisciplinary context .
Participants during a serious game workshop