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Interest in citizen participation is increasing generally. Almost all operational research (OR) is engaged with clients, but it is mainly in the areas of Soft and Community OR that wider stakeholder and citizen participation has been a significant focus. It is the involvement of citizens that is the subject of this paper. We surveyed OR literature and compiled a corpus of 62 studies, the earliest from 1970, to systematically characterize the involvement of citizens in OR processes. Our review produced three findings: First, some fields of OR have embraced citizen participation, but this is not yet a major concern outside the field of Community OR. Second, citizen participation in OR processes is often driven by a moral rationale. Third, progress in information and communication technology (ICT) enables broad participation, but traditional processes requiring physical presence can also be participatory. From these insights, we formulate research opportunities for OR. (1) OR may join Community OR's endeavor to engage with and empower citizens who have so far rarely been involved in OR processes. (2) OR may identify benefits and drawbacks of digital OR processes in empirical studies. (3) OR may determine whether involving large numbers of citizens is suitable for the societal scale. (4) OR may research building and maintaining trust. (5) OR may join efforts for data protection of participants. (6) OR may systematically report and reflect on participatory OR processes. (7) OR should continue researching the fair aggregation of individual inputs. Citizen participation in OR is topical and challenging. Pursuing these research opportunities will contribute to OR fulfilling its mandate of better decision-making in close cooperation with all affected stakeholders.

Innovative online interfaces informing and consulting citizens about their preferences for multicriteria decision analysis (MCDA) could make public decision-making more participatory. We propose a three-faceted learning for decision-making framework and used it to test newly-designed online weight elicitation interfaces. We investigated two features meant to enhance learning: fully-fledged gamification with a narrative, interaction with nonplayer characters, and ambient music, and learning loops (LL) using consistency checks of elicited weights and the challenge to resolve inconsistencies. We operationalized our framework with a novel systematic set of measure instruments providing complementary data types. We designed a 2 × 2 between-subject experiment with pre- and postquestionnaires. Answers from 769 respondents, representative of the Swiss population in age and gender, indicated that the interfaces successfully raised awareness about wastewater management. Gamification was helpful: respondents performed better in the factual learning test, and unexpected social learning occurred. However, gamification lowered the perception of process understanding. The LL were beneficial: objectively, respondents performed better in the factual learning test. However, respondents perceived the LL as cognitively demanding and their factual learning as lower. Our structured assessment highlighted the need for further research to investigate, for instance, high interpersonal variability and the disparities between tested and perceived learning. Measuring preference construction remains challenging; and social learning should be added to the assessment framework. Applying such structured assessment of learning outcomes to more traditional operational research interventions would provide a baseline for future comparison.

Transformations can require deliberative, participatory decision-making processes that go beyond disciplinary silos. Such complex decision-making processes can be supported by Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis. Eliciting stakeholders’ preferences that are compatible with value-focused thinking and Multi-Attribute Value Theory is particularly relevant. It reveals unavoidable trade-offs and how the different stakeholders are willing to make these trade-offs. Hereby, it can serve as a basis for deliberative transformation processes. Using wastewater management real-world cases which impact the citizenry both directly and indirectly, I investigated (1) whether online preference elicitation produced reliable data, and (2) whether gamifying the interface for online preference elicitation made preference elicitation more accessible, and enjoyable, for many. My contribution will briefly explain the methodology, and present results from my empirical and experimental research. Online preference elicitation, gamified or not, proved successful at raising citizen awareness on the challenges faced by wastewater management in Switzerland.

Co-chairing an interactive session following input situating game-based approaches for (B)OR and (B)OR for game-based approaches.

Some OR practitioners understand OR-supported decision-making as a learning process for the participating stakeholders. Learning during OR-supported processes have been one of the lenses of BOR (e.g., Franco et al., 2021; Monks et al, 2014, 2016; Thompson et al., 2016). In learning sciences, many concepts and theories exist, such as constructive alignment, Bloom's taxonomy for learning, or competence model – Dimensions of actions. To my understanding, the practical implications of these concepts and theories from learning sciences are similar to how we think about supporting a participatory decision-making process with OR methods. I would like to invite the BOR community to reflect on what we can learn from these inputs, in addition to what we already do. Can these concepts and theories guide our study of OR-supported processes? If yes, how?

We developed four online interfaces supporting citizen participation in decision-making. We included (1) learning loops (LLs), good practice in decision analysis, and (2) gamification, to enliven an otherwise long and tedious survey. We investigated the effects of these features on drop-out rate, perceived experience, and basic psychological needs (BPNs): autonomy, competence, and relatedness, all from self-determination theory. We also investigated how BPNs and individual causality orientation influence experience of the four interfaces. Answers from 785 respondents, representative of the Swiss German-speaking population in age and gender, provided insightful results. LLs and gamification increased drop-out rate. Experience was better explained by the BPN satisfaction than by the interface, and this was moderated by respondents' causality orientations. LLs increased the challenge, and gamification enhanced the social experience and playfulness. LLs frustrated all three needs, and gamification satisfied relatedness. Autonomy and relatedness both positively influenced the social experience, but competence was negatively correlated with challenge. All observed effects were small. Hence, using gamification for decision-making is questionable, and understanding individual variability is a prerequisite; this study has helped disentangle the diversity of responses to survey design options.

Widely available digital technologies are empowering citizens who are increasingly well informed and involved in numerous water, climate, and environmental challenges. Citizen science can serve many different purposes, from the "pleasure of doing science" to complementing observations, increasing scientific literacy, and supporting collaborative behaviour to solve specific water management problems. Still, procedures on how to incorporate citizens' knowledge effectively to inform policy and decision-making are lagging behind. Moreover, general conceptual frameworks are unavailable, preventing the widespread uptake of citizen science approaches for more participatory cross-sectorial water governance. In this work, we identify the shared constituents, interfaces, and interlinkages between hydrological sciences and other academic and non-academic disciplines in addressing water issues. Our goal is to conceptualize a transdisciplinary framework for valuing citizen science and advancing the hydrological sciences. Joint efforts between hydrological, computer, and social sciences are envisaged for integrating human sensing and behavioural mechanisms into the framework. Expanding opportunities of online communities complement the fundamental value of on-site surveying and indigenous knowledge. This work is promoted by the Citizens AND HYdrology (CANDHY) Working Group established by the International Association of Hydrological Sciences (IAHS).

Most of the literature on serious games and gamification calls for a shift from evaluating practices to using theories to assess them. While the former is necessary to justify using game-based approaches, the latter enables understanding "why" game-based approaches are beneficial (or not). Based on earlier review papers and the papers in this special issue of Water entitled "Understanding game-based approaches for improving sustainable water governance: the potential of serious games to solve water problems", we show that game-based approaches in a water governance context are relatively diverse. In particular, the expected aims, targeted audience, and spatial and temporal scales are factors that differentiate game-based approaches. These factors also strongly influence the design of game-based approaches and the research developed to assess them. We developed a framework to guide and reflect on the design and assessment of game-based approaches, and we suggest opportunities for future research. In particular, we highlight the lack of game-based approaches that can support "society-driven" sustainable water governance.

New scientific understanding is catalyzed by novel technologies that enhance measurement precision, resolution or type, and that provide new tools to test and develop theory. Over the last 50 years, technology has transformed the hydrologic sciences by enabling direct measurements of watershed fluxes (evapotranspiration, streamflow) at time scales and spatial extents aligned with variation in physical drivers. High frequency water quality measurements, increasingly obtained by in situ water quality sensors, are extending that transformation. Widely available sensors for some physical (temperature) and chemical (conductivity, dissolved oxygen) attributes have become integral to aquatic science, and emerging sensors for nutrients, dissolved CO2, turbidity, algal pigments, and dissolved organic matter are now enabling observations of watersheds and streams at time scales commensurate with their fundamental hydrological, energetic, elemental, and biological drivers. Here we synthesize insights from emerging technologies across a suite of applications, and envision future advances, enabled by sensors, in our ability to understand, predict, and restore watershed and stream systems.

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