Call for Proposals: Navigating Nonstationarity—Decision Analysis for the 21st Century
To what extent does a hidden assumption of stationary dynamics underlie many decision analyses? And what do we do when that assumption isn’t warranted?
No-analog futures, such as those induced by climate change and other large-scale system changes, present profound challenges for decision makers and the decision analysts who advise them. These changes affect nearly every industry, government, and community across the globe, providing grave challenges, but also opportunities for innovation. Without past experience to guide them, decision makers must grapple with assessing the impact of unprecedented future changes, the effectiveness of different—sometimes deeply novel—decision options, and the need to meet a wide range of goals.
These large-scale system changes present profound challenges for decision analysts as well: systems are nonstationary; timeframes of interest are very long; trade-offs across time need to be considered; multiple objectives may be involved; there may be many actors who influence the system and many interested parties who are affected by the system; there may be no single decision maker; the full set of decision objectives may be opaque; and deep uncertainty may prevail. Do we have the decision analytical tools we need, and do we know how to apply them effectively to these decision challenges?
This Special Issue of Decision Analysis will explore the ways in which the field of decision analysis can advance the methods and applications needed to support decisions that affect and are affected by climate change and large-scale environmental changes. We are interested in topics that address a range of environmental changes, including climate mitigation actions to reduce greenhouse gases, adaptation to the impacts of climate changes, disaster risk management, community and systems resilience, environmental and pollution management, and integrated decision making that accounts for portfolios of decisions that consider climate and environmental changes. We are interested in a broad range of research articles using methodologies typically published in Decision Analysis, as well as articles that advance cutting-edge, evidence-based thinking that integrates environmental change science with decision-analytic methods. For more details on the types of papers that are likely to be considered within this scope, please see the recent editorial at https://pubsonline.informs.org/doi/10.1287/deca.2020.0408.
We are soliciting letters of intent. The letter of intent should contain:
A suggested title for the proposed paper,
An abstract of the topic (300–600 words), and
A proposed timeline for submission (ideally 3–12 months after the invitation).
Letters of intent can be submitted via email as a PDF to DA.
Based on the letters of intent, we will invite a selection of authors to write full manuscripts. The selection of papers will depend on the quality of the abstract as well as on the composition of the Special Issue as a whole. If your paper is not invited for this Special Issue, you may still submit your paper to Decision Analysis or other journals.
Timeline:
Letters of intent due: February 1, 2027
Invitations proffered by: March 1, 2027
Manuscripts due: rolling, preferably by August 31, 2027
Manuscripts will be published online as they are accepted.
We aim to publish the Special Issue by June 2028.
Guest editors:
Michael C. Runge, U.S. Geological Survey
Melissa A. Kenney, University of Minnesota
Thomas S. Palley, Georgetown University
Anna M. Tucker, U.S. Geological Survey
