European Commission-funded Projects and Climate Adaptation Platform Webinar

Background

A number of European Commission (EC)-funded projects and the EU Mission Adaptation Community of Practice include as part of their respective work programmes, engaging with European national and regional/transnational climate adaptation (knowledge) platforms (CAPs). These projects include:

• Maximizing the synergy of European research Governance and Innovation for Climate Action (MAGICA),     
• Maximising impact and accessibility of European climate Research (MAIA),     
• A Gathering place to cO-design and co-cReate Adaptation (AGORA), and 
• Supporting and Developing Widening Strategies to tackle Hydroclimatic Extreme Events: Impacts and Sustainable solutions for cultural heritage (SD-WISHEES). 

These discussions led to the decision to hold a webinar that would bring together these CAPs and EC-funded projects, along with the Mission on Adaptation to explore potential synergies, share insights and foster collaboration to advance climate adaptation initiatives. As such, the key objectives of this webinar were identified as:

• Sharing these EC-funded projects’ details and intentions and experiences with CAPs.
• Presenting the Mission Adaptation and its Community of Practice – to invite CAPs to join.
• Engaging and fostering a dialogue between these EC-funded projects and European CAPs – exploring how EC-funded projects could collaborate with CAPs and strengthen each other.
• Identifying and exploring opportunities for synergies and collaboration between projects and CAPs.

Summary

The webinar was held on Wednesday, February 7th, 2023, 13:30 – 15:00 CET.

The agenda was developed with the aims of reflecting the key objectives and to providing opportunities for seeking feedback and insights from the participants through facilitated dialogues. To these ends, the agenda was divided between a brief set of presentations by the EC-funded projects and the Adaptation Mission followed by two sessions seeking to hear from the participants (a Question-and-Answer session and guided open discussion session).

Brief presentations included:

• The EU Mission on Adaptation and its Online Community of Practice – presented by Erlend Hansen, MIP4Adapt
• MAGICA – presented by Roger Street, University of Oxford, and Giulia Galluccio, CMCC.
• MAIA – presented by Sukaina Bharwani, SEI, and Maria-Jose Sanz, BC3.
• AGORA – presented by Rosie Witton, SEI.
• SD-WISHEES – presented by Roger Street, University of Oxford

The open discussion was targeted at engaging participants to share their perspectives and insights on four guiding questions:

1. What are the challenges that need to be overcome to achieve synergies and collaborations between the EC-funding projects and CAPs?
2. What are potential enablers to achieving such synergies and collaborations?
3. What do you see as critical next steps (next 2-3 years) towards realising such synergies and collaborations? – exchanges / processes for sharing across platforms and projects, roles of CAPs within EC-funded projects, etc.
4. Aligning this initiative with EC-funded projects and activities

Concluding Remarks

There is a well expressed need to continue these types of dialogues within the right types of forums and engaging a broader community. We can see the potential of such, including more focused dialogues on particular projects, outcomes, or issues.

To read the full webinar report, including information on the discussion, key links, and contacts, please download the featured resource to the right and the presentations here.