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In this paper, we explore a concept of exercise design within emergency management competence development. The paper presents recommendations for exercise design aspects that may be suitable for gaining collaboration skills and knowledge that responders need in unknown events of high complexity. This study explores the practice of tabletop exercises with complex scenarios that engage participants to discover organizational roles and responsibility division in collaborative action. Empirically, we base our analysis on maritime search and rescue nuclear preparedness exercises in the Arctic seas. We focus on elements that are essential for learners to increase their knowledge of operational complexity and collaborative performance, including understanding one's own and others' roles and responsibilities, formation of interagency teams, their boundaries and interaction between authorities and levels, mutual recognition of risks and learning about resource capacities and their limitations. The study draws conclusions on aspects that are critical for designing emergency management tabletop exercises, in particularly discussions in mixed groups for interpretative learning; own practice reflection for integrative learning; formulating general collaborative competence objectives, and complexity and realism of scenarios. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]