A serious game approach to a coastal community living lab
Summary of work plan
Framed in the European Commission Mission on “restore our ocean and waters by 2030” the PhD work plan is integrated in the A-AAGORA project – Blueprint for Atlantic-Arctic Agora on cross-sectoral cooperation for restoration of marine and coastal ecosystems and increased climate resilience through transformative innovation. The work plan addresses the following research question – How to contribute to better inform citizens and decision makers by mobilising local actors and coastal communities in active and passive marine ecosystem restoration and by co-creating socially and economically sustainable solutions?
To address this question the work plan Considers ‘Living Lab’ concept that can enable transformative change advised by active and informed stakeholders and citizens; it implements fuzzy cognitive mapping to understand the relationship between anticipated social–ecological changes and differences in knowledge and perception; and builds on serious gaming approach, enabling stakeholders to participate at decision-making through their reasoning, viewpoints, arguments, and trade-offs.
The main objective is to co-develop implementable social-ecological innovations for deliberative democracy process in the Portuguese Centro Region coastal area (A-AAGORA project Demo-PT), and to prepare a framework for up-scaling of the gamification approach beyond this region.
Research will benefit from data and information that will be generated in close collaboration with the A-AAGORA team and involves: mapping of the main human driven and climate change related pressures, for identifying nature-based solutions for building climate resilience together with local authorities, business, and citizens, using a Living Lab approach; fuzzy cognitive modelling, to identify the key components of the coastal system and their inter-relationships; and developing the game that will build up on existing concepts like the Maptionnaire web-based application for accessing climate resilience (https://maptionnaire.com/). It will use real world GIS (raster or vector) data to create the “game world” and will have configurable in-game stakeholder groups.
The work to be carried out by the grant holder will also include the following of crosscutting tasks: Bibliographic research, literature review, document and data analysis; Writing and contributing to publications in journals and/or reference scientific events within the scope of the research topic; Elaboration of technical and scientific reports and of documents intended for different stakeholders and audiences; Participation at the related project/projects meetings (national and/or international); Development of actions for the communication and dissemination of the project(s) and its results.
Profile of applicants
The candidates should have an academic background in marine science, marine ecology, or marine social sciences. Skills in computing programming and database analyses are required.
Supervisors
Ana Lillebø (CESAM, University of Aveiro, Portugal); Vera Hausner (The Arctic University of Norway); Rudi Voss (Center for Ocean and Society, Kiel University, Germany)
Hosting institutions
University of Aveiro (Portugal)
Doctoral programme
Do*Mar – Marine Science, Technology and Management
Evaluation panel
Henrique Queiroga (CESAM and Department of Biology, University of Aveiro); Ana Hilário (CESAM and Department of Biology, University of Aveiro); Ricardo Calado (CESAM and Department of Biology, University of Aveiro)
Notice of the Call ( Portuguese Version)
Notice of the Call ( English Version)
We are no longer accepting applications for this scholarship. Thank you.