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.

About a decade ago, the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (PBL) unwittingly embarked on a transition from a technocratic model of science advising to the paradigm of “post-normal science” (PNS). In response to a scandal around uncertainty management in 1999, a Guidance for “Uncertainty Assessment and Communication” was developed with advice from the initiators of the PNS concept and was introduced in 2003. This was followed in 2007 by a “Stakeholder Participation” Guidance. In this article, the authors provide a combined insider/outsider perspective on the transition process. The authors assess the extent to which the PNS paradigm has delivered new approaches in the agency’s practice and analyze two projects—on long-term options for Dutch sustainable development policy and for urban development policy—the latter in somewhat more detail. The authors identify several paradoxes PBL encounters when putting the PNS concept into practice. It is concluded that an openness to other styles of work than the technocratic model has become visible, but that the introduction of the PNS paradigm is still in its early stage.

The Sustainable City study of the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (PBL) uses an analytical-deliberative approach to generate integrated options for strategic, long-term urban development policies in the Netherlands. Scenarios for the sustainable city were designed using visions and roadmaps that were actively developed by actors involved in urban development and planning. The subsequent scenario analysis on potential, coherence and distributional effects across socio-economic groups was combined with the narratives from the stakeholder dialogues to develop model-based narratives. These model-based narratives indicate the necessity of extensive national and international policy choices in the fields of energy, transport and spatial planning for the ecological sustainability of cities. The local level emerges as crucial when it comes to social sustainability. A transition that would benefit sustainability on all dimensions may be reached when citizens and civic and private organizations start to value (more) aspects of urban design and development that contribute to and create a sustainable quality of life. Thus far, little attention has been paid to policy-relevant knowledge on the urgency and complexity of triggering any such transitions. Based on the lessons learnt from this study, it can be concluded that, in the follow-up to this study, issues crucial to urban sustainable development have to be made more specific and concrete and more attention is needed for technological, institutional and societal feasibility. Interaction with policy makers and other stakeholders is again crucial.Across the workshops, the stakeholder groups repeatedly and consistently stressed certain aspects of urban life, design and development as important preconditions or manifestations of urban sustainability. In our analyses of the stakeholder dialogues we focussed on these so-called storylines. In the workshops on urban health, the stakeholders emphasized the importance of a city environment that promotes more physical activity and is less dependent on individual car usage (Michiels van Kessenich and Leroy, 2009). In the liveability track on growth of cities, the stakeholders interpreted a sustainable city as an environment that promotes social cohesion, support and diversity. In the track on demographic shrinkage, the strengthening of the local economy and social networks by smart re-use of homes and space was emphasized. In the energy track, the stakeholders embraced the idea that the total energy demand of the city can be met through energy saving and local energy production using various renewable sources (Folkert 2009). The main storylines from the health (HE), liveability (LI) and energy (EN) tracks were combined into the following set of sustainability values.

a b s t r a c tModelers involved in environmental policy assessments are commonly confronted with the lack of uptake of model output by policy actors. Actors have different expectations of models, condensed into three quality criteria: credibility, salience, and legitimacy. The fulfilment of quality criteria is also dynamic as expectations vary, change, and possibly counteract each other. We present a checklist for modelers involved in model-based assessments that is aimed at the identification and monitoring of issues, limitations and trade-offs regarding model quality criteria. It draws upon the literature of integrated assessments as well as case study analysis of environmental policy assessments for the Dutch government, based on expert interviews and embedded experience. The checklist is intended to be consulted during assessments; its application may result in greater awareness among modelers involved in assessments regarding model quality criteria, and may positively affect the uptake of model-based knowledge from environmental policy assessments by policy actors.