On December 11th, 2025, James Vandenberg had the opportunity to host a gamified participatory systems-mapping workshop with researchers from the Center for Innovation Systems & Policy at the Austrian Institute of Technology (AIT). The session brought together a diverse group of innovation scholars who engaged deeply with the challenge of identifying and prioritizing urban agriculture’s array of impacts and exploring how they influence one another within complex urban systems.

This workshop at AIT forms part of the ongoing GReenSCape project, which examines how diverse forms of urban agriculture contribute to urban resilience and sustainability across different contexts. It also represents the next step in advancing the gamified participatory systems mapping method the GReenSCape team has been developing to co-create Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL) pathways with stakeholders. By blending systems thinking, game activities, and collaborative decision-making, the method aims to help urban agriculture initiatives articulate their visions and understand their impact on people, communities, and the environment. This can then support urban agriculture initiatives in designing monitoring approaches that reflect their capacities and realities, which include their access to resources, institutional embedding, and organizational structure.

The workshop sparked lively discussion around what should be considered as priority impacts for resilient and sustainable urban agriculture initiatives. Participants debated trade-offs, uncovered surprising synergies, and reflected on how different values and goals shape their understanding of impact. The systems-mapping stage generated particularly rich conversations. Drawing connections between different impact cards made visible the underlying assumptions with regards to how different goals are connected via causal pathways, and the reinforcing dynamics between such which often remain unspoken.

Equally productive was the dialogue around the usefulness and feasibility of MEL frameworks. Participants highlighted both the importance of MEL for guiding decision-making, adapting to change, and legitimizing and visualizing the value of urban agriculture for strengthening urban resilience and sustainability. However, participants also surfaced real-world implementation challenges. These challenges include resource limitations, data burdens, organisational turnover, and the need for shared commitment across teams. Participant’s reflections align strongly with the broader insights emerging from previous workshops in Metro Manila, where community farms, local government actors, and social enterprises similarly stressed the need for MEL frameworks that are not only meaningful but feasible, context-sensitive, and co-owned by practitioners.

The insights generated at AIT will directly feed into the refinement and evolution of the gamified participatory systems mapping method for creating MEL frameworks. Each iteration brings new perspectives, new questions, and new opportunities to strengthen how we understand, measure, and support the multifunctional contributions of urban agriculture in an era of climate uncertainty.

We warmly thank all the participants for their time, efforts, and insightful contributions.