On 10 September 2025, a Safeguard-BioAgora game-based workshop took place in Brussels, Belgium, to explore how policy and practice in responding to the pressures facing pollinators may improve the state of pollinator biodiversity and their benefits. The workshop, titled “Integrated assessment of policy interventions for pollinators: A game-based dialogue”, was organised by Safeguard partners, the Institute for European Environmental Policy (IEEP), INRAE, and with support from the Horizon Europe BioAgora project and the University of Stirling.
Through interactive scenarios played out in virtual agricultural to urban landscapes, about 20 participants, including scientists, policy experts, NGOs and practitioners, evaluated different policies and strategies affecting the management of wild pollinators, examining their impacts on aspects of biodiversity, ecosystem services and human well-being. Individually and collectively, participants explored how the game functions as a deliberative tool – designed to stimulate dialogue and foster shared understanding, and inspire collective reflection on the acceptability of different societal responses to pollinator decline.
This workshop supports Safeguard’s research efforts in work package 5: “Integrative Assessment Framework (IAF) socio-ecological concepts, tools and solutions”. The EU Pollinators Initiative has, amongst its strategic priorities, a declared need to establish an integrated assessment framework (IAF) for evaluating: 1) pollinator biodiversity, 2) linked causes and consequences of decline, and 3) systemic outcomes of policy actions aiming to improve pollinator conservation (EC 2023). Safeguard is responding to this declared policy need by conceiving and parameterising an IAF for wild pollinators in Europe by employing a combination of expert elicitation to conceptualise and assess the evidence and stakeholder workshops and feedback to establish the acceptability of policies and potential actions deemed effective measures by the experts.