Projects

Adaptation and Resilience in the Context of Change (ARCC)

UKCIP and EPSRC began work in 2001 to stimulate multi-disciplinary research on impacts and adaptation in the built environment. Now in its fourth phase, the ARCC network brings together researchers and stakeholders involved in adaptation to technological, social and environmental change, including climate change, in the built environment and infrastructure sectors. It provides a UK-wide network to develop and exchange knowledge and evidence from across the research community to better inform policy and practice.

UKCIP provides the management of the ARCC programme, communications and technical expertise, and digital and graphic design services.

Infrastructure Transitions Research Consortium (ITRC)

The ITRC is a £4.6 million, 5-year EPSRC funded research project hosted at Environmental Change Institute, University of Oxford. It delivers research, models and decision support tools to enable analysis and planning of a robust national infrastructure system. The research addresses major challenges for the energy, transport, water, waste and ICT systems sectors.

Roger Street is the Stakeholder Champion, while UKCIP provides the website, graphic design services and knowledge exchange expertise.

Towards a UK climate change adaptation knowledge exchange activity

April – July 2017, KE Seed Fund grant

Recent international policy developments have highlighted the need for knowledge targeted at informing action on climate change adaptation. Yet within the UK, recent changes have seen the demise of many support activities. Research into adaptation is also becoming increasingly extensive so there is now a mismatch between the provision of evidence from research and the ability of policymakers to find, synthesise and use it to inform decisions.

Through interviews with climate adaptation policy and policy-informing organisations, we have identified the need, nature and potential scope of approaches to improve the connectivity between research and policy. Possible delivery mechanisms that could provide a sustainable and flexible network in both the short and longer-term have been explored.

• UK adaptation options paper (pdf, 100 KB)

Enhancing recognition of the contribution of engineering and physical sciences to achieving a resilient nation

November 2017 – April 2018

A resilient nation helps provide citizens with sustainable managed resources, reliable services and the ability to combat man-made and natural threats. This EPSRC-funded project will provide an initial analysis of the contributions and value of eps research and of EPSRC investments towards achieving a resilient nation. The analysis will be used to identify options and recommendations for taking this work forward to support the EPSRC in realising its vision and goals as set out in its Delivery Plan 2016/17 to 2019/20.

• Rrsilient Nation summary (pdf, 550 KB)
• Achieving a resilient nation booklet (pdf, 4.4 MB)

The Climate Crunch

The Climate Crunch is a one-year project drawing on the research and insights of LWEC fellows to address the question: ‘How can the international community, and the UK as a leading player within it, deal with complex and inter-related challenges in its attempts to tackle climate change?’. The project aims to identify viable, evidence-based lessons about how those involved in the governance of climate change are responding to the challenges. It will also add value to the research of individual climate change fellows by generating targeted messages for significant audiences.

BT Openreach

UKCIP supported Openreach by providing information on climate change impacts and adaptation to inform Ofcom’s Fixed Access Market Review (FAMR). Our report describes the current broad scientific and policy landscape for climate impacts and adaptation, including the extent to which a changing climate has been considered by the telecommunications sector.

The varying responses of a selection of other UK sectors (and regulators) to the challenge of climate change are considered and the likely changes faced by the UK are described, using the UKCP09 climate projections. Based on these findings, the report concludes with recommendations for future research to understand how these changes may impact on the ability of Openreach to maintain business continuity and service quality in a changing climate.

Climate justice with the Joseph Rowntree Foundation

In July 2017, we co-hosted a workshop with Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) and Climate Outreach to share learning from JRF’s climate change, social justice and community resilience work. Participants discussed activities that would keep the climate justice agenda alive in light of the closure of JRF’s climate change programe. A report from the event summarises the day’s output (pdf, 680 KB), and a LinkedIn group has been established to continue the theme.

Since the JRF launched its climate change and social justice programme in 2010 there has been growing interest in the fairness agenda, and a growth in research into how climate change itself, and the policies designed to both curb and adapt to it will impact on different people. UKCIP, working with our colleagues at the Transport Studies Unit (University of Oxford), undertook a review of recent peer-reviewed and grey literature focused on climate change and social justice. This report also identified research gaps and made recommendations regarding further research.

Climate-ADAPT

Climate ADAPT is an online platform for information about adaptation activities across Europe. It is an initiative of the European Commission and helps users to share information that will support sound adaptation responses to climate change.

UKCIP’s experience of working with stakeholders in the UK as they develop adaptation strategies and actions enables us to provide expert support to Climate ADAPT. UKCIP monitors and provides updates for the Climate ADAPT Adaptation Support Tool (itself based on UKCIP’s Adaptation Wizard), and supplies the news and events content for Climate ADAPT.

European Topic Centre on Climate Change impacts, vulnerability and adaptation (ETC/CCA)

ETC/CCA is a consortium of 14 partner organisations from European Environment Agency member countries. It supports the 2013 EU Strategy on Climate Change Adaptation, including management of the European Climate Adaptation Platform (Climate-ADAPT). This includes work on urban adaptation (socially just adaptation actions in European cities), the evaluation of the Climate-ADAPT website and the status of national impact and vulnerability assessments in the EU.

UKCIP is a member of the successful consortium who will continue to deliver work under the ETC/CCA until 2018.

Our Place on Earth

With a focus on community-based adaptation projects, Our Place on Earth produced a series of documentaries to show how important local and traditional knowledge is to successful adaptation. Nui-Tara Key and Tom Miller are working to show the positive side of climate change, aiming to enthuse audiences and inspire people to think differently about their environment.

PLACARD (Platform for climate adaptation and risk reduction)

PLACARD is a platform to bring together climate change adaptation (CCA) and disaster risk reduction (DRR) knowledge and information to enhance collaboration between the two communities. UKCIP leads on the evaluation of processes and approaches used in the project in order to learn from and improve shared practice across Europe. We also lead the external communications through digital dissemination and social media.

Coffee & climate

Coffee & climate helps coffee farmers around the world to understand and prepare for climate change. We helped to write their Climate change adaptation in coffee production manual, a step-by-step guide for adaptation at a farm level.

JPI Climate

JPI Climate is a collaboration between 13 European countries to coordinate jointly their climate research and fund new transnational research initiatives. JPI Climate connects scientific disciplines, enables cross-border research and increases the interaction between science and practice.

JPI Climate contributes to the overall EU objective of developing a European Research Area and is coordinated with the EU’s Horizon 2020 programme in support of excellent science, industrial leadership, and the European response to climate change.

Adapting to Climate Change in China (ACCC)

ACCC is an innovative initiative focused on linking climate change research with policy-making and development. The project began in June 2009 as a collaboration between UK, China and Switzerland; it is funded by the UK Department For International Development (DFID), the Swiss Agency for Development Cooperation, UK Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC).

ACCC develops and shares China’s experience of integrating climate adaptation into the development process, in order to reduce China’s, and other countries’, vulnerability to climate change.

UKCIP has been involved in the project since its inception. During the first phase of work we provided international experience on conducting vulnerability, risk and adaptation assessments, including the integration of impacts and social vulnerability perspectives. We also provided guidance of the development of user-friendly climate scenarios. For the second phase we have supported the ACCC project in learning lessons and sharing experiences in the context of South-South cooperation, including the publication of a manual reflecting on adaptation planning processes and ACCC experiences.

Climate change impacts, vulnerability and adaptation in West Balkan countries

This European Environment Agency-funded project assesses the status of climate change impacts, vulnerability and adaptation (CCIVA) in the West Balkans. Participants include representatives from Environment Agencies, Meteorological Offices and research organisations from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo UNSCR 1244/99, Montenegro and Serbia.

Working alongside European Environment Agency and CMCC, as well as local partners, UKCIP’s work outlines the current state of knowledge and activity on CCIVA within the participating countries. We organised workshops to provide an overview of activities by various European organisations; to provide hands-on experience to the experts from WB countries; and to develop activities in order to contribute to Climate-ADAPT national pages and case studies.