Integrated assessment

A Multiple Perspective Approach

Integrated assessment is an avenue to explore opportunities and risks of social systems. It is a cross-disciplinary approach, combining, interpreting and communicating knowledge and information from diverse scientific disciplines and areas of practice. Its added value is a more comprehensive view on the issues involved than provided by mono-disciplinary and myopic professional approaches. Integrated assessment should offer policy makers useful information. It is an iterative process, whereby comprehensive scientific views are exchanged with policy- and decision-makers, who in turn produce input to the researchers involved. Therefore, it is a heuristic – and not a predictive – device for envisioning the future. Integrated assessment pays mainly attention to tricky ethical and governance problems.

Figure: Integrated assessment through policy exercises

For more details about integrative assessment and its application to the issue of Global Climate Change, see Chapter 10 of the book:
The Magic Circle: Principles of Gaming & Simulation