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There is increasing recognition of the wicked nature of the intertwined climate, biodiversity and economic crises, and the need for adaptive, multi-scale approaches to understanding the complexity of both the problems and potential responses. Most science underpinning policy responses to sustainability issues, however, remains overtly apolitical and focussed on technical innovation; at odds with a critical body of literatures insisting on the recognition of systemic problem framing when supporting policy processes. This paper documents the experience of implementing a mixed method approach called quantitative story-telling (QST) to policy analysis that explicitly recognises this normative dimension, as the methodology is part of a post-normal science (PNS) toolkit. The authors reflect on what was learnt when considering how QST fared as a tool for science–policy interaction, working with European Union (EU) level policy actors interested in sustainable agriculture and sustainable development goal 2. These goals—also known as UN Agenda 2030—are the latest institutionalisation of the pursuit of sustainable development and the EU has positioned itself as taking a lead in its implementation. Thus, the paper illustrates our experience of using PNS as an approach to science policy interfaces in a strategic policy context; and illustrates how the challenges identified in the science–policy literature are amplified when working across multiple policy domains and taking a complex systems approach. Our discussion on lessons learnt may be of interest to researchers seeking to work with policy-makers on complex sustainability issues.

This paper contributes to the conference discussions of (1) “what are the trade-offs and synergies between the economic, environmental and social dimensions of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) as a policy geared towards sustainability”; and (2) how to measure the performance of agriculture at a range of scales. Specifically, we assess whether there are tensions for CAP policy between enhancing productivity and the provision of public goods. Our insights are derived from an EU Horizon 2020 project, Moving Towards Adaptive Governance in Complexity: Informing Nexus Security (MAGIC) exploring the robustness of policy narratives in the water, energy, food and environment nexus. As highlighted in the conference objectives, assessing the role of the CAP in delivering sustainability requires taking multiple, non-equivalent perspectives (e.g. geographical scales or structural hierarchies). The conduct of these multi-perspective studies is guided by the concepts of societal metabolism analysis. The analytical focus is thus on understanding the mix of biophysical and socio-economic resources needed to maintain social-ecological systems (e.g. food and farming systems) and the degree to which these are met locally, highlighting where there may be dependencies on other systems or externalised impacts. We conducted transdisciplinary research with policy makers using Quantitative Story Telling (QST). The QST process has a phase of qualitative analysis of the institutional and semantic framings of CAP policy narratives, followed by formal quantification of the robustness of policy narratives using the MuSIASEM toolkit for societal metabolism analysis. Interpretation of these formal analyses, with stakeholders in DG Agri and other EU institutions, closed the loop. The results of this analysis (and of other analyses for Biodiversity, Circular Economy, Energy Efficiency, and Water Framework Directive) are available via the MAGIC document repository. From the semantic qualitative phase, the narrative selected as the basis for formal analysis was: “CAP aims to ensure European agricultural competitiveness in the world market and aims to deliver public goods such as biodiversity conservation, water quality and climate change mitigation. These aims are in opposition”. The formal societal metabolism analysis was pan-EU, focusing on key aspects of EU farming systems. These characterized imports and exports of agricultural commodities, the relative intensities of inputs use in production systems and the aggregate impacts of production systems on environmental indicators. Farm Accountancy Data Network (FADN) data and Eurostat CAP impact metrics already include variables that can support these pan-EU societal metabolism analyses. Adding more bio-physical quantities to those existing within FADN, particularly for inputs and outputs, would enhance its analytical value, particularly for identifying externalisation and pressures on the environment.

This paper introduces an EU Horizon 2020 project (MAGIC) being conducted between 2016 and 2020 to better understand how EU water, food, energy and biodiversity policies are linked together and to EU climate and sustainability goals. The research is thus another instance of a nexus study in which various forms of research-derived and other knowledge are combined to evaluate and improve policy and other decision-making. The project is shaped by insights on the conduct and evaluation of inter- and transdisciplinary research for policy support reported through the MODSIM and iEMSs conferences in recent years. MAGIC brings together, from multiple centres, expertise in biophysical, computational, economic and social sciences underpinned by theories of transdisciplinary science-for-governance. These MAGIC consortium partners also have experience of treading the fine line between challenging policies (which may be defended by vested interests) and supporting processes of policy reform (whose impetus and legitimacy rely on generating communities of interest). The key challenges for MAGIC are whether this breadth and depth of expertise can be combined in ways that are theoretically rigorous, practical within the resources available and deliver more than the sum of its parts, that is, with discernible impact beyond the science-policy interface (i.e. outwith academia). The integrative core of the project is Quantitative Story Telling (QST), a process of making quality tests of the narratives that underlie or justify key policy positions. The qualities of the policy narratives assessed are their feasibility (within biophysical limits), viability (within the existing institutional context) and desirability (reflecting distributional and acceptability issues); using uses reformulations of existing statistical datasets and simple empirical transformations. The analysis is framed using a societal metabolism metaphor. That is, it focuses on the funds of land and human time needed to create the flows of materials, energy and money that reproduce and maintain the identity of the system of interest (e.g. current patterns and trajectories of consumption). The analysis is conducted simultaneously across scales (geographical or classificatory) to highlight key externalisation effects and dependencies that may undermine long-term security. This quantitative testing of narratives is preceded and shaped by critical choices made by both policy stakeholders and the research team. Which narratives should we focus on? How should we explore these with our social metabolism analysis? Different stakeholders and team members may all have different preferences and epistemological positions. Failure to acknowledge, and where possible resolve, such fundamental differences could limit potential for impact by ensuring that researchers and policy makers have no shared issue framing. For MAGIC, there is thus a strong focus on, and investment in, using social science methods to understand the actors, framing and institutional context within which the QST is conducted and any outputs are used. Deliberative and inclusive processes (undertaking the research in mixed-teams of researchers and stakeholders) are being used to legitimise the process of analysis and ensure that the outputs of QST are salient and credible. The paper concludes by reflecting on how well the expertise developed by the authors in conducting policy support translates from the particular context of Scotland into the structures, processes and procedures of the EU.