At the end of the first day we had a discussion addressing questions like “Is it important to take uncertainties into account”, “Which typology of uncertainties is most useful?”, “Why should we use a common uncertainty terminology?” and “What does robust refer to and why is it important?”

All participants agreed that it is important to take uncertainties into account, but to not focus only on uncertainties. A common typology of uncertainty was rendered useful for facilitating communication between disciplines, but as researchers and policy makers each have their own angle of approach, different typologies might be useful for them.

More details on the discussion can be found in the Discussion Summary of Day 1.

On the second day before dinner, a lively discussion took place, in which we addressed questions such as “How to combine different types of uncertainties and what methods to use?”, “What are the differences in methods and tools between policy makers and researchers?” and “Can we attach probabilities to scenario's?”

The discussion raised a lot of important questions, related to the initial ones above, but we found it hard to come up with answers. In general there was a need for exchanging experiences with different methods, but at the same time the recognition that differences in specific circumstances make it hard to come up with fit-for-all solutions. We also touched on the different roles of decision makers and scientists, and how important (and often hard) it is to distinguish them. The use of scenario's is one issue where this comes to light: in general, it was agreed that scenario's inherently can have no probability attached. Requesting probabilities in such a case is an implicit invitation to the scientist to take on the role of decision maker.

More details on the discussion can be found in the Discussion Summary of Day 2.

The workshop was wrapped up in the discussion at the end of the last day. Issues specific for communicating uncertainties were discussed (on visualization, on the language barrier between policy makers and scientists and on who should learn who's language). But also broader themes such as (again) the different roles of scientists and decision makers were addressed.

In general it was felt that although it would be good to understand a bit more of each other's way of thinking, there is a need of specifically trained “boundary workers” to organize the interface. However, scientists themselves could also be more aware of “the question behind the question”. We ended by discussing the most striking or important messages to take home from the workshop.

More details of the discussion can be found in the Discussion Summary of Day 3.