Participatory modeling for high complexity, multi‐system issues: challenges and recommendations for balancing qualitative understanding and quantitative questions

Community stakeholder participation can be incredibly valuable for the qualitative model development process. However, modelers often encounter challenges for participatory modeling projects focusing on high‐complexity, synergistic interactions between multiple issues, systems, and granularity. The diverse stakeholder perspectives and volumes of information necessary for developing such models can yield qualitative models that are difficult to translate into quantitative simulation or clear insight for informed decision‐making. There are few recommended best practices for developing high‐complexity, participatory models. We use an ongoing project as a case study to highlight three practical challenges for tackling high‐complexity, multi‐system issues with system dynamics tools. These challenges include balanced and respectful stakeholder engagement, defining boundaries and levels of variable aggregation, and timing and processes for qualitative/quantitative model integration. Our five recommendations to address these challenges serve as a foundation for further research on methods for developing translatable qualitative multi‐system models for informing actions for systemic change. © 2024 System Dynamics Society.