Project description
Unpacking legitimacy in water management models
Models play a key role in guiding policies, such as those related to climate action under the Paris Agreement. However, these models often obscure important choices about how they are built and used, which can favour certain viewpoints. This can lead to decisions that do not reflect the needs of all stakeholders. Understanding how these models gain legitimacy is crucial for fair decision-making. With this in mind, the ERC-funded LEGIT project aims to explore this issue with a specific focus on water management. By examining three case studies, the project looks at how models acquire authority through social and technical factors. This research will help uncover hidden values in models and improve transparency, ultimately supporting better governance and democracy.
Objective
Models facilitate anticipatory governance. A prominent example is the use of climate models to support the Paris Agreement. But models are not neutral - they conceal value-laden choices, such as in how model approaches are selected or model applications are framed. This implies that certain perspectives are favoured by the model. Since decisions based on such value-laden models have real-world consequences, it is essential to understand how these models obtained the legitimacy to serve as policy advisors. The model code itself reveals only the tip of the iceberg, because it does not show the negotiations before the model was established. Therefore, the LEGIT project aims to uncover the factors and processes through which especially water-management models acquire legitimacy to support decisions and to develop theory on establishing legitimacy. To achieve this goal, my team and I scrutinize three case studies and explore the social-political-institutional, the socio-technical, and the simulation perspective through respectively policy document analysis and interviews with decision-makers; model documentation analysis, interviews with modellers and ethnographic observations of modellers; and extensive uncertainty analysis of model applications. This rich collection of data allows to formulate a preliminary theory of legitimacy of water-management models as decision support tools. This theory will be further refined based on a serious game that mimics relevant actors and decision processes. LEGIT starts from a strong empirical stance with the aim to understand modelling in anticipatory governance. LEGIT’s theory will enhance insights on concealed values in such models and allows for in-depth discussion of their policy application. But more importantly, LEGIT explains how a model got authority, despite its concealed values. This paves the way to more transparency in the process of using models as decision support tools, thereby contributing to a stronger democracy.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- social sciences sociology governance
- social sciences political sciences government systems democracy
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Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC)
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Topic(s)
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Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
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Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC Grants
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Call for proposal
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Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) ERC-2024-STG
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Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
6708 PB Wageningen
Netherlands
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