Who uses MCM

Since its development in the late 1990s (1), MCM has been used in a wide variety of contexts including the appraisal of options for energy strategy (2,3); food production (4,5,6); environmental policy consultation (7); radioactive waste management (8); obesity policy (9); and public health responses to the shortage of kidney donors (10).

MCM has been favourably reviewed as an academic research tool (11) and as a framework for policy appraisal (5)

Forming part of a wider Deliberative Mapping process, MCM has been favourably highlighted as a basis for high-level policy consultation, both in government documentation (12) and (for instance) in the journal Nature (13).

  1. Stirling A, Mayer S, Rethinking Risk: a pilot multi-criteria mapping of a genetically modified crop in agricultural systems in the UK, report for the UK Roundtable on Genetic Modification, SPRU, University of Sussex, August 1999 ISBN 0/903622/86/6
  2. Stirling A. Multi-criteria mapping: mitigating the problems of environmental valuation. In: Foster J (ed.). Valuing Nature. Routledge: London, 1997.
  3. McDowall W, Eames M. Towards a Sustainable Hydrogen Economy: A Multi-criteria Mapping of the UKSHEC Hydrogen Futures. Policy Studies Institute: London, 2006.
  4. Stirling A, Mayer S. Precautionary Approaches to the Appraisal of Risk: a case study of a GM crop. Int J Occup Environ Health 2000; 6: 342–357.
  5. Stirling A, Mayer S. A novel approach to the appraisal of technological risk. Environ Plan C 2001; 19: 529–555.
  6. Mayer S, Stirling A. Finding a precautionary approach to technological developments – lessons for the evaluation of GM crops. J Environ Agric Ethics 2002; 15: 57–71.
  7. Clark J, Burgess J, Stirling A, Studd K, Chilvers J, Lewis S. Local Outreach. Report to the UK Environment Agency, R&D Technical Report SWCON 204. University College Environment and Society Research Unit: London, 2001.
  8. Burgess J, Stirling A, Clark J, Davies G, Eames M, Mayer M, Staley K, Williamson S. Deliberative Mapping: developing an analytic-deliberative methodology to support contested science-policy decisions, Public Understanding of Science, 16(3), 299-322, 2007
  9. Stirling A, Lobstein T, Millstone E, Methodology for obtaining stakeholder assessments of obesity policy options in the PorGrow project, Obesity Review, 8(2), December 2006. pp.17-27 – and other articles in this special issue.
  10. Davies G, Burgess J, Eames M, Mayer S, Staley K, Stirling A, Williamson S. Deliberative Mapping: Appraising Options for Addressing ‘the Kidney Gap’. Final report to Wellcome Trust. Wellcome Trust: London, 2003.
  11. Yearley S. Mapping and interpreting societal responses to genetically modified crops and food. Soc Stud Sci 2000; 31: 151–160.
  12. Horlick-Jones T, Walls J, Rowe G, Pidgeon N, Poortinga W, O’Riordan T. A Deliberative Future? An Independent Evaluation of the ‘GM Nation?’ Public Debate about the Possible Commercialisation of Transgenic Crops in Britain. Understanding Risk Programme, University of East Anglia: Norwich, 2004.
  13. Anonymous, Going Public, Nature editorial, 431, 7011, 2004, p.883. At: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v431/n7011/full/431883a.html