DECIDE has presented its positional paper in the Networks, Markets & People International Symposium 2024, held from 22nd – 24th May 2024, at the Università Mediterranea of Reggio Calabria, Italy.

Our paper presentation in the Thematic Session 07 – Decision support in the urban context in the digital age: interactions and uncertainties, hosted by Prof. Isabella Lami & Dr. Elena Todella, discussed about the main characteristics of design activities, how urban planning can be interpreted a design activity, and then compares and contrasts data-driven and model-driven strategies with outcome-driven strategies.

It argues that outcome-driven Decision Support Systems (DSS) are more appropriate than current data-driven approaches to integrate Multi-Domain Models (MDMs) in the context of sustainable urban-regional planning. This is because, for urban planning, DSS needs to provide fit-for-purpose answers to problems faced by practitioners when managing and designing city features – which is a design problem. In fact, DSS must cater for scenarios assessing viable solutions with regards to how they change in accordance with ever-changing constrains, plus tailor the communication of these scenarios to the level of expertise of the involved stakeholders.

Stay tuned for the full publication!