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Presents the theoretical foundations of the creative problem‐solving technique known as Synectics. Points out the usefulness of this technique for educational leaders and describes a five‐session training programme that was developed and tested in Cyprus by the author. The training programme, which is based on the Synectics literature, has promising results with school principals and prospective organizational leaders.

Evaluation of energy and climate policy interactions is a complex issue, whereas stakeholders' preferences incorporation has not been addressed systematically. The purpose of this paper is to present an integrated weighting methodology that has been developed in order to incorporate weighting preferences into an ex ante evaluation of climate and energy policy interactions.

A multi‐criteria analysis (MCA) weighting methodology which combines pair‐wise comparisons and ratio importance weighting methods has been elaborated. It initially introduces the users to the evaluation process through a warming up holistic approach for an initial rank of the criteria and then facilitates them to express their ratio relative importance in pair‐wise comparisons of criteria by providing them an interactive mean with verbal, numerical and visual representation of their preferences. Moreover, it provides a ranking consistency test where users can see the degree of (in)consistency of their preferences.

Stakeholders and experts in the energy policy field who tested the methodology stated their approval and satisfaction for the combination of both ranking and pair‐wise comparison techniques, since it allows the gradual approach to the evaluation problem. In addition, main difficulties in MCA weights elicitation processes were overcome.

The methodology is tested by a small sample of stakeholders, whereas a larger sample, a broader range of stakeholders and applications on different climate policy evaluation cases merit further research.

The novel aspect of the developed methodology consists of the combination of ranking and pair‐wise comparison techniques for the elicitation of stakeholders' preferences.

This study aims to examine the factors shaping the intentions of people to visit a hostile outgroup.

An exploratory, qualitative research approach was followed. Specifically, 77 semi-structured interviews with citizens of the divided island of Cyprus were conducted.

This study identifies several categories of visitors and non-visitors, depicted along a continuum, and concludes that there is a multiplicity of factors in the socio-political environment which influence the travel intentions of people.

This study not only imparts insights into the way travel decision-making evolves in politically unstable situations but also serves as a stepping stone towards understanding the conditions under which reconciliation between hostile nations may be encouraged by travel.