M-Tool has been developed in the MultiTip project, at the Research centre for Environmental Economics, Heidelberg University. Within this project, stakeholders' mental models of Lake Victroria's Nile perch fishery are captured. You can read about mental models in this project in the following publications:

Other ongoing projects that are using M-Tool to capture mental models:
 

1. Mental models of the COVID-19 Pandemic
   Denise de Ridder, Floor Kroese, Ellen Moors, Lieke van den Boom, Heleen van der Zee, Maartje Aalders, Jetske Mulder & Karlijn van den Broek, Utrecht University
   How do citizens perceive the development of the COVID-19 pandemic? What are the perceived dynamics of the factors that influence transmissions of the virus and the number of cases? These are the questions that this team of researchers is investigating by mapping citizens' mental models of the pandemic. 
    
2. Mental models of land security among Tanzanian farmers 
   Lisa Murken, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research
   In this project, farmers in Tanzania are first asked to comment on their level of land tenure security. Farmers who feel insecure about their land tenure are then asked to select and arrange drivers of their tenure insecurity in a mental model.
    
3. Mental Models of the Protein-Shift
   Lieke van den Boom, Floor Kroese, Denise de Ridder, Ellen Moors & Karlijn van den Broek, Utrecht University

   This research project uses the M-Tool to study the mental models of consumers in the transition from animal-based proteins to plant-based proteins. The M-Tool will be used to examine how consumers understand the transition and what they think are important drivers. We aim to identify which mental models are facilitating the transition and the adoption of plant-based alternatives for meat and dairy products and which mental models are hindering this transition.
    

4. Indigenous communities' perceptions of trade-offs between SDG's
   Denise Margaret S. Matias, Institute for Social-Ecological Research Frankfurt
   Mario Angst, Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research WSL
   Karlijn van den Broek, Copernicus Institute for Sustainable Development, Utrecht University
   This team from the Robert Bosch Postdoc academy are planning to use M-Tool to map the perceptions of the trade-offs between Sustainable Development Goals among indigenous communities and other stakeholders attending the COP26. The tool will help to measure these perceptions in an inclusive way, and to compare perceptions of these trade-offs across stakeholders.
    
5. Mental models of climate change risk in West and East Africa
   Maryse Chappin & Karlijn van den Broek, Copernicus Institute for Sustainable Development, Utrecht University
   Gisela Böhm & Usman Isyaku Department of Psychosocial Science, Bergen University
   The MECCA project aims to identify adaptation and mitigation strategies by analyzing the gap between stakeholder’s mental models of change and risk and projected impacts of human activities under changing climatic conditions in East Africa (Lake Victoria) and West Africa (Lagos). M-Tool will be used in this project to capture stakeholders' mental models of the drivers and consequences of climate change among fishing, farming, and urban communities as well as relevant policymakers. 
    

6. Mental models of eating behavior

   Denise de Ridder, Marleen Gillebaart, Caroline Schlinkert & Jeroen Benjamins, Utrecht University
   Maartje Poelman, Wagening University
   Several individual and contextual factors are of importance when making food choices. In this project, people are asked to use M-Tool to map the factors that play a role in the snack choices they make.
    

7. Sustainable fishing: social relations, identity and co-management of Adriatic fishery resources
   Dražen Cepić, University of Zadar
   The proposed research builds on current trends in fishery research: the study of normative aspects of fishing, mental models, identities and social networks. While fishery science in Croatian academia has been based on life sciences, the proposed research project would help establish the social scientific exploration of fisheries as a new and valuable area of research. The proposed research is based on a mixed methods research design, involving a combination of qualitative and quantitative data-collection methods: policy analysis, stakeholder analysis, survey research, social network analysis, ethnography, semi-structured interviews, and focus group discussions. These methods will be used to study marine fisheries on the Croatian coast of the Adriatic. The focus will be on commercial capture fisheries, in particular industrial and small-scale fisheries. However, in order to capture the complexity of the fisheries system, the research will also look at fisheries segments which can be difficult to isolate from commercial capture fisheries, such as aquafarming and recreational fishing.
    

If you would like to add your M-Tool project to this website, please contact us.