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Nature Based Solutions (NbS) are mainstreamed as an innovative and adequate approach to climate change. Combining natural dynamics and materials with technical knowledge, NbS are seen as a promising venue for coastal adaptation. However, little still is known about the role that the many uncertainties associated with such projects play in the effectiveness of these solutions, and about how to cope with these uncertainties, considering both positive and negative impacts that NbS may have for our society. Here, we investigate, if and how, managing uncertainties via the cascades of interrelated uncertainties conceptual framework improves the governance capacity for implementing NbS coastal management projects. To this end, we conduct an ex-post analysis of the uncertainties in two NbS study cases (Sand Engine and Safety Buffer Oyster Dam BwN projects in The Netherlands), critically analyzing through the conceptual framework, how uncertainties were addressed and proposing better fit supporting alternatives. Our results indicate major benefits for uncertainty management, supporting project development and implementation: generating more flexibility in managing under unknown conditions, being able to anticipate conflict and maladaptations, providing opportunities of creating new supporting relationships and alternative solutions. [Display omitted] • Nature Based Solutions involve fundamentally different interrelated uncertainties. • The cascades of interrelated uncertainty framework improves uncertainty management. • Identification of ambiguity serves to anticipate conflicts and maladaptations. • Recognizing uncertainty cascading effect open more possibilities of intervention and uncertainty management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: It has been frequently acknowledged that results of predictive genetic tests may have implications for relatives as well as for the individual client. Ethicists have noted that an individual’s right to know her genetic risk may conflict with a relative’s right not to know this risk. It is hardly recognised, however, that family members may have a role in the production of test results as well. This article reconstructs the actual process of predictive BRCA-testing in the Netherlands, with a special focus on the roles assigned to clients and families and the expectations about family relationships inscribed in this practice. Fieldwork was carried out in an outpatient clinic for clinical genetics in an academic hospital. Data collection included 11 interviews with members of families, observations of counselling interviews between research participants and their clinical geneticist, and interviews with the 2 clinical geneticists involved in the consultations. It compares this process to the American practice of BRCA-testing. Whereas Dutch practice presupposes active involvement of diseased relatives in the testing process, American practice constitutes the client primarily as an independent individual who may or may not decide to involve her relatives. Moreover, Dutch clients are expected to have a harmonious, open and communicative relationship with their relatives. The American client, in contrast, is supposed to have more distant family relationships. It is argued that an interpretation of these differences in terms of ‘the right to know’ and ‘the right not to know’ misses the point, because the production of informative test results depends on the cooperation of relatives. The differences between Dutch and American practice are more adequately interpreted as implying a preference for unambiguous test results versus a preference for individual independence. The paper shows what is lost when opting for one value at the cost of another and discusses several alternatives to circumvent the value conflict at stake. By opening up for discussion the values implicit in BRCA-testing practices, the paper aims to contribute to debates on the overall desirability of these practices. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Environmental managers have to deal with many uncertainties in carrying out their jobs. Literature describes several strategies that can be employed to manage these uncertainties, but this is done in a fragmented way. Therefore, this article aims to develop a comprehensive, coherent and empirically sound classification of uncertainty management strategies. The strategies mentioned in literature can be classified into four categories: ignoring uncertainty; knowledge generation; interaction and coping. A case study of the implementation of the Water Framework Directive (WFD) by Dutch water boards was conducted to test whether the identified strategies are employed in practice. The WFD presents the water boards with uncertainties resulting from the requirements to improve water quality and ecology on one hand, while leaving room to adapt those requirements to regional interests, practices and institutions on the other. The case study confirms the empirical soundness of the classification by revealing that many of the uncertainty management strategies in literature are applied in practice as well. However, further research to test the empirical soundness of the classification in other fields of environmental management is required. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Authors in previous studies pointed out that the professional competences of managers overlap with the competences and skills that are attributed to entrepreneurs. The goal of this study is to analyze the correlation between the actual market demand for competences to develop new businesses and the competence of training and development by higher education institutions (HEIs) and business supporting institutions (BSIs). The research question is "Are the entrepreneurial competences demanded by the domestic markets in Finland, Latvia and The Netherlands aligned with the entrepreneurship educational and business supporting policies?" As a research methodology, we chose focus groups and semi-structured interviews conducted for start-up entrepreneurs, HEIs, and BSIs as methods for data gathering. An importance–performance analysis (IPA) was applied as the method for data analysis. As the main research results, the authors identified that ethical and sustainable thinking as well financial and economic literacy were considered to be the least important competences, while motivation and perseverance were commonly ranked as highly important by entrepreneurs in all the countries studied. Entrepreneurship education policy in The Netherlands is fully harmonized with market demand. Entrepreneurship development activities in Finland also meet the market's needs, however HEIs and BSIs could develop self-awareness and self-efficacy as well as cope with uncertainty, ambiguity and risk competences. The major disagreement was detected between entrepreneurs' expectations and entrepreneurship education activities conducted by HEIs and BSIs in Latvia. This research implication fills the gap in knowledge about the entrepreneurial competences developed by HEIs and BSIs and were demanded (considered as important) by the market in the researched countries. Further, we developed the entrepreneurship training methodology for transdisciplinary students to enhance entrepreneurial competence dissemination and development across education programs and beyond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]