Herman Hummel, Hanie Matajinimvar, Dominga van der Vliet, Vivien Laros, Alissa Lotzkes, Veronika Poškutė (HuFoSS, Roosendaal, the Netherlands)
The third round of MARBEFES Stakeholder consultations was held from November 2025 till May 2026. All study locations, the so-called Broad-Belt-Transects (BBTs; Fig. 1), and an Outscaling station, i.e. Martinique in the Caribbean, have been visited to hear the stakeholders their viewpoints, appreciation, and suggestions for co-design on the semi-final tools produced by the various WorkPackages (WPs) in the project.
At all locations interactive workshops have been held to let the stakeholders test the functionality of the tools in hands-on exercises. Four tools that were most developed for a wider audience, i.e. the MARBEFES Toolbox, the BowTie, the Social-Ecological Systems – Decision Support System (SES-DSS) and the Governance tool, were tested during half a day. At the end of each test the stakeholders their opinion and suggestions were requested by means of a Mentimeter.
Figure 1. The location of the Broad-Belt-Transects (BBTs) in MARBEFES
We have consulted 103 stakeholders, of which most belonged to the academic researchers, authorities and management, and to a lesser amount to private businesses, SMEs, NGOs and the public at large (Fig.2).
Figure 2. The number of stakeholders heard in the third round of stakeholder consultations
The overall appreciation of the tools was at all locations satisfactory, i.e. at a level of 3 to 4 on a scale of 5 (Fig.3). The MARBEFES Toolbox scored on an average the highest. The ease of use of the tools was scored somewhat lower since several stakeholders indicated the tools were still rather complex and could be more simplified, though the Governance tool was judged to be already sufficient easy to use.
Figure 3. Scores given by stakeholders in the regional workshops for the tools on a scale from 0 to 5. From left to right: How much they appreciated the tools (rating), to what degree they expect to use the tools, to what degree they expect others will use the tools, how easy the tool was to use, and how likely they will use the tool in the future.
The stakeholders indicated especially the potential of the tools for information, social-ecological system exploration, communication, and decision-making processes. Nevertheless, the stakeholders indicated frequently the higher complexity and technical challenges of the tools, and therefore advised the tools use a more intuitive and user-friendly user navigation, a description or translation in the local language, and a more locally directed approach for the steps to be made in the tools instead of an AI guided approach.
Moreover, they indicated the need to secure that the information is up to date in the Toolbox and the Governance tool, in order to keep those tools “alive in time” and “dynamic”. To this end, the stakeholders suggested to install working groups for editing the tools.
Nonetheless, the consistently moderate-to-high scores across all categories suggest that stakeholders recognise the value of the tools developed in MARBEFES and perceive potential for their future use. Thereby the stakeholder workshops have proven to be helpful for the further co-design of these tools and in advancing the overarching goals of the MARBEFES project
To conclude the third consultation round, an Overarching Stakeholder Workshop was organised in Zandvoort, the Netherlands, in early spring 2026, bringing together stakeholders and tool developers from across Europe. During the workshop, participants tested the semi-final versions of the MARBEFES tools, exchanged experiences from the regional consultations, and provided additional feedback on the applicability of the tools. The tool-developers could directly on-the-spot process the feedback to improve the tools, and show the revised tools the next day to the stakeholders for further amendments. Thanks to this
co-design process whereby the stakeholders offered constructive recommendations regarding usability, transparency, and practical implementation, the tools were finally very positively received, with a high score of around 4 out of 5 points (Figure 4). Thereby the Overarching Stakeholder Workshop served as an important final co-design step before the tools enter their final development phase.
Figure 4. Scores given by stakeholders in the Overarching StakeholderWorkshop, early spring 2026, for the tools on a scale from 0 to 5. From left to right: How much they appreciated the tools (rating), to what degree they recommend the tools to be used by others, and how user-friendly the tools are.
Photos from MARBEFES research sites and workshops. (all copyright with HuFoSS, yet for the newsletter free to be used, when indicating @HuFoSS) (all copyright with HuFoSS, yet for the newsletter free to be used, when indicating @HuFoSS)
