Multi Criteria Mapping
- intermittent fieldwork
- months timescale
- medium resource requirement.
Multicriteria mapping (MCM) is an interactive hybrid quantitative/qualitative method in which participants recruited from plurality of specialist and stakeholder perspectives are invited to undertake in-depth appraisal of a diversity of policy options according to their own evaluative understandings and uncertainties. Attention focuses systematically on a common set of ‘core options’, as well as allowing any other options to be considered. Interviews can be individual or part of group deliberative workshops. Allowing flexible analysis and visualization of a rich array of finely-disaggregated data, MCM allows a ‘broadening out’ of the range of issues, contexts, understandings, scenarios and ambiguities taken into account in appraisal, as well as an ‘opening up’ of wider appreciation for practical implications for decision making and social choice (Coburn and Stirling, forthcoming).
For example, it can illuminate diverse positions amongst communities such as ‘scientists’, ‘farmers’, ‘locals’ or ‘environmentalists’. In this way, Q methodology can make visible how communities view or experience policy interventions, environmental effects, social issues or other social or material phenomena. Hence Q methodology can provide valuable insights allowing decision makers open up the scope of possible policy goals and policy interventions in pursuit of development that is sustainable in the view of diverse interested groups.
- Should I use MCM?
Distinctive features of MCM relative to other similar methods include: the maximizing of accessibility and transparency to participants; an equal respect for participatory principles and criteria of analytical rigour; a balanced emphasis on qualitative reasons for evaluative judgements as on quantitative scoring; a nuanced exploration of the inseparable relations between factual data and subjective framings and values; avoidance of forced agregations and trade-offs; candour about the full depth and scope of uncertainties; a reconciliation between critical interest in sceptical interrogation of alternative rationales, as well as a pragmatic focus on concrete options for action. Emphasising a value that ‘the participant should be in the driving seat’, MCM seeks to minimize the frequent vulnerabilities of appraisal, to the framing decisions of researchers or their sponsors (Stirling, 1997; Stagl, 2007).
As a result, MCM is especially useful in contexts where there is a freedom from restrictive disciplinary conventions and a genuine openness to the practical implications of divergent perspectives. As such, it aims to help provide democratic accountability as well as analytical rigour (Stirling and Mayer, 2001).
- How do I use MCM?
MCM ultimately maps different points of view so that they may become visible for all decision participants and stakeholders. In short, the ‘mapping’ of perspectives in MCM enables all decision participants and stakeholders to understand the complex issues in focus, as they are seen from different points of view. The means by which MCM achieves this, however, lies not just in the technical details of the method, but also in its organizing norms, the overall architecture and context of associated appraisals, and their associated bodies of practice.
The MCM process consists of 4 stages: choose options; define criteria; assess scores; and assign weights (Illustrated in Figure 1, anti-clockwise from 12 o’clock).
The stages of an MCM mapping session.
In an MCM interview or group session, participants can redefine and add to a list of predefined ‘core options’, to create a range of options for appraisal. They can develop their own sets of criteria to evaluate all options. Participants assign optimistic and pessimistic scores under each criterion for each option to reflect uncertainties. Weights are assigned to each criterion at the end to express different values and priorities. Moving freely between these steps, care is taken at every stage to note down the qualitative reasons for scoring choices as well as the numbers. The resulting interlinked quantitative and qualitative results provide a very broad and deep picture of the complexities, whilst also clearly highlighting the practical decision implications under particular conditions.
Aided by a clear visual representation of scores and weights and final ranks, participants can interact with the picture at every stage to help them settle on a robust representation of their understanding. Participants remain in the ‘driving seat’ in assigning scores and weights, but they are also held rigorously to account, by being required to justify their scores and weights according to their own understandings of salient evidence. This enables important uncertainties, ambiguities and sensitivities to be illuminated, that are often concealed in other methods.
There is a detailed manual to accompany the MCM method (Coburn and Stirling, 2016).
- Examples of MCM in Sustainability Research
Striving to realise qualities of broadening out and opening up, MCM has been used in a wide variety of sustainability domains, including the appraisal of energy strategies (Stirling, 1997; McDowall and Eames, 2007), food production options (Stirling and Meyer, 2001), obesity policy options (Stirling, Lobstein and Millstone, 2007), organ transplantation options (Burgess et al., 2007), and sustainability transitions (Raven et al., 2017). Facilitated by readily-accessible user-friendly browser-based software, MCM is supported by a comprehensive manual (Coburn and Stirling, 2016) that helps ensure the achievement of the aspired qualities in appraisal, as well as providing further accountability to participants and third parties.
- References and Resources
Burgess, J. et al. (2007) ‘Deliberative mapping: a novel analytic-deliberative methodology to support contested science-policy decisions’, Public Understanding of Science, 16(3), pp. 299–322.
Coburn, J. and Stirling, A. (2016) Multicriteria Mapping Manual - Version 2.0. SWPS 2016-21. Brighton, UK.
Coburn, J. and Stirling, A. (2017) ‘Multicriteria Mapping as a Problem Structuring Method for Project Front- Ending (Draft)’.
Collingridge, D. (1982) ‘Critical Decision Making: a new theory of social choice.’, in. London: Frances Pinter.
McDowall, W. and Eames, M. (2007) ‘Towards a sustainable hydrogen economy: A multi- criteria sustainability appraisal of competing hydrogen futures. International Journal of Hydrogen Energy’, International journal of hydrogen energy, 38(18), pp. 4611–4626. doi: http://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhydene.2007.06.020.
Raven, R. et al. (2017) ‘Unpacking sustainabilities in diverse transition contexts: solar photovoltaic and urban mobility experiments in India and Thailand’, Sustainability Science. Springer Japan, 12(4), pp. 579–596. doi: 10.1007/s11625-017-0438-0.
Stagl, S. (2007) SDRN Rapid Research and Evidence Review on Emerging Methods for Sustainability Valuation and Appraisal A report to the Sustainable Development Research Network Final Report. Available at: http://sdrn.policystudiesinstitute.org.uk/sites/default/files/publications/Emerging Methods for Sustainability Valuation and Appraisal_0.pdf (Accessed: 8 May 2018).
Stirling, A. (1997) ‘Multi-Criteria Mapping: Mitigating the problems of environmental valuation’, in Foster, J. (ed.) Valuing Nature? Ethics, economics and the environment. London and New York, pp. 186–210.
Stirling, A. (2010) ‘Keep it complex’, Nature, 468, pp. 1029–1034.
Stirling, A. (2017) ‘Precaution in the Governance of Technology.’, in Yeung, K. (ed.) Oxford Handbook on the Law and Regulation of Technology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Stirling, A., Lobstein, T. and Millstone, E. (2007) ‘Methodology for obtaining stakeholder assessments of obesity policy options in the PorGrow project’, Obesity Reviews, 8(SUPPL. 2), pp. 17–27. doi: http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-789X.2007.00355.x.
Stirling, A. and Mayer, S. (2000) ‘Precautionary Approaches to the Appraisal of Risk: A Case Study of a Genetically Modified Crop’, Int J Occup Environ Health, 6(3), pp. 342–357.
Stirling, A. and Mayer, S. (2001) ‘A novel approach to the appraisal of technological risk: A multicriteria mapping study of a genetically modified crop.’, Environment and Planning C: Government and Policy, 19, pp. 529–555. doi: http://doi.org/10.1068/c8s.
- SSRP projects using MCM
Suggested citation: Stirling, A. (2019). Multicriteria Mapping [online] Sussex Sustainability Research Programme Research Methods for Sustainability Catalogue. Available at: http://www.sussex.ac.uk/ssrp/resources/research-methods/multi-criteria-mapping.