Learning on ecosystem services co-production in decision-making from role-playing simulation: Comparative analysis from Southeast Europe

Role-playing simulations (RPSs)--a type of serious games--involve face-to-face mock decision making with multi-stakeholder negotiation. In decision making, they are often adopted to operate representations of central features of reality, highlighting rules and trade-offs, knowledge and learning-by-doing, motivations and negotiation processes. This study applies an RPS to investigate the mechanisms of activation of ecosystem services (ES) flow, as a result of co-production of the actors involved in a decision-making process. Against a common setting and predetermined objectives, arrangements negotiating ES and associated motivations are analyzed in relation to the RPS characters and their roles in the ES flow. This study applies a comparative experimental approach to support a transnational capacity-building process on sustainable local development through renewable energy sources. The RPS was replicated in 10 sessions in eight Southeast European countries, with almost 230 participants from marginal rural landscapes. From the results, we highlight the variability of the selection of ES, and the arrangements and motivations within each RPS session. ES arrangements emerge from group-based decision-making processes, where pools of players are pivotal in analyzing, assessing, and orienting decisions, beyond pre-existing expert knowledge on ES. Strengths and limitations of the method are discussed in the context of simulation practices.