02 December 2015
European Environment Agency (EEA)/
European Topic Centre on Climate Change, Impacts, vulnerabilities and adaptation (ETC/CCA)
Background paper for the second webinar on Climate-ADAPT development – Selection of information from EU funded research
Wednesday 16th of December 2015, 11:30 to 13:00 CET
1. Introduction and purpose of the webinar
The European Climate Adaptation Platform (Climate-ADAPT)[1], has been designed to offer easy access to information on adaptation in Europe. The platform aims to facilitate the collection, sharing and use of this information in order to build a robust and up-to-date knowledge base. This knowledge base can then assist the uptake of the relevant knowledge by decision makers, and contribute to a greater level of coordination of activities between sectors and institutional levels. Contributions to the database and “research projects” pages from European research projects are one of the ways of expanding the Climate-ADAPT knowledge base, considered as a complementary source to national adaptation portals and information systems that cover national research.
This is a background paper to support the second webinar on the development of the Climate-ADAPT platform. The invitation and the agenda for the meeting are provided in a separate document. The webinar will focus on how best to work with ‘providers’, mainly from EU funded research projects, other EU projects, and international organisations.
DG CLIMA and EEA are interested in feedback from research funding organisations, researchers, NRC’s and international organisations on proposals for a user-friendly presentation and efficient selection of the results of EU funded research activities. This should also cover options for collaboration that can be specified in subsequent webinars and follow-up meetings.
Why should you join the webinar?
· To provide your views on how the Climate-ADAPT database presents the knowledge resources developed by research projects (publications, tools, web platforms)
· To provide your views on the criteria for selecting projects presented on separate “research projects” pages in more detail
· To clarify the ‘added value’ for researchers of having a presence on Climate-ADAPT
· To discuss how we can more actively engage the research community to submit content.
EEA/DG CLIMA has had many interactions with users and providers on the development of Climate-ADAPT since its launch in 2012[2]. However, there was a need for a more regular exchange of information and views. So the EEA, in collaboration with DG CLIMA, decided to organise two webinars during 2015. The webinars are additional activities to the existing interactions with users, in particular the annual EIONET workshops (e .g. 15th-16th June 2015, EEA, Copenhagen) and conferences such as the second European Climate Change Adaptation conference (ECCA 2015, Copenhagen, 12th-14th May 2015). In the webinars, we are requesting discussion and feedback on the sites’ content and functionality. This is intended to increase the transparency of the platform development and engage users and providers in this process.
The first Climate-ADAPT webinar held in April 2015 focused on the state and plans for the further development of Climate-ADAPT and how countries could develop case studies. The presentations and a summary of the questions and answers of the webinar are provided in a follow-up document[3]. The specific topic of the second webinar is to clarify how research information is selected for the site, so that providers can contribute appropriate information from their projects to Climate-ADAPT. Furthermore, feedback will be requested from users if the selection of content for Climate-ADAPT based on the systematic criteria-based approach meets their needs.
2. Main principles for the selection of information for Climate-ADAPT
Based on the vision of Climate-ADAPT described in the Climate-ADAPT work plan (2014 to 2018) a number of main principles have been identified as a guidance for the maintenance and further development of the platform:
· Relevance: Climate-ADAPT should facilitate access to the most relevant sources of adaptation- information in the EU. The information is generated by governmental organisations (ministries and public agencies), research institutes by means of research projects and/or programs, and by practitioners (cities, sectoral organisations).
· Reliability: Climate-ADAPT aims to be a portal of containing reliable information and tools, with defined minimum quality standards for the metadata provided for the description and filtering of the information presented and to seek for common approaches at EU level. Climate-ADAPT allows interested stakeholders in climate change adaptation policies and knowledge to provide information. Providers of information are expected to follow their own quality assurance processes, including e. g. peer review procedures. The Climate-ADAPT team checks whether the criteria for the selection of content as well as the procedures and criteria for metadata submission have been followed.
· Complementarity: Climate-ADAPT should provide information on adaptation resources that are relevant at EU level, and should be complementary to the content of national, transnational and other thematic adaptation knowledge platforms in the EU.
· Timeliness: Climate-ADAPT should facilitate access to the most up to date sources of adaptation-relevant information in the EU.
· Accessibility: Climate-ADAPT should facilitate a straightforward access to the most relevant sources of adaptation-relevant information in the EU. The platform should not be a repository of data and information, but an entry point to multiple sources of information. The information is collected and presented in a structured way, including presenting metadata for each item in a database.
· Transparent and responsive development: Climate-ADAPT is a long-term knowledge infrastructure, to be further developed step by step, responsive to the users´ needs and priorities and according to the available resources. These will be identified in accordance with the EU Adaptation Strategy’s aims, and in consultation with key stakeholders identified in its governance structure.
EEA together with the European Topic Center on Climate Change impacts, vulnerability and Adaptation (ETC/CCA) aims to strike a balance between the different principles when updating Climate-ADAPT. We do this by selecting information that is most relevant for decision-makers, most up-to-date in terms of scientific knowledge and by taking into account the human and IT resources available including those of the intended users.
4. Content and Structure of Climate-ADAPT
The Climate-ADAPT platform content is divided in two main parts: a) web page content and b) a database (DB).
a) The web page content is organised under four main entry points (Web pages):
o Adaptation information –This is where the “Research projects page” is located and where new research project information will be highlighted;
o EU adaptation policies
o Countries, regions and cities
o Tools.
The individual sections of Climate-ADAPT have different ownerships with direct implications for the scope and timing of the maintenance process. For example, information on the “countries section” is submitted by EEA Member countries based on official reporting towards the Commission under the MMR regulation[4] (reporting was due in March 2015) and voluntary updating. Almost all country pages have now been updated following the MMR submissions. The database and the content of the section with individual research projects are mainly maintained by EEA, supported by the ETC/CCA. An overview of the different sections and further information about each of the web pages is available in Annex I.
b) The database (DB) contains structured and continuously updated information on climate change adaptation of ten different types of resources which is searchable via filter criteria. The information types include: Publications and reports; Information portals; Guidance documents; Tools; Maps, graphs and datasets; Indicators; Research and knowledge projects; Organisations; Adaptation options; Case studies (for details see Annex II).
Please note that the layout of Climate-ADAPT and some functionalities (e. g. the search function) will however change somewhat after ongoing work on functionalities has been finished (by end 2015), and again some changes will occur after moving to a new content management platform (to be finalised in May 2016).
4. Presentation of EU research project information
Sections of Climate-ADAPT that are the most relevant for this webinar are a) the database[5] and b) web page content – in particular the “research projects” page[6]. Both section are being used to present the results of European research to contribute to the sharing of knowledge on adaptation in Europe.
We encourage the research community to provide the relevant knowledge to Climate-ADAPT. There is significant added value for researchers of submitting project information to the ‘research pages’ and research results to the Climate-ADAPT database.
This includes
· Wider outreach and more visibility – Results can be made available to an audience beyond the scope of the project website. Climate-ADAPT is used by policy-makers, researchers, international organisations and many others from across Europe and the world.
· Greater uptake – Projects results will be accessed and potentially used more frequently as users are prompted to use the information through a series of promotional activities such as presentations at events and the bi-monthly newsletter.
a) Research information in the database
A large number of adaptation related research projects are funded by the European Commission by different programmes such as Horizon 2020, FP7, Interreg and LIFE/LIFE+ etc. Furthermore, research initiatives like Climate-KIC are also providing relevant knowledge. The relevant projects are being added to the Climate-ADAPT database according to the Climate-ADAPT updating procedures[7]. The metadata available for “research and knowledge projects” in the database is included in Annex III.
Many countries have developed their own databases with nationally relevant research projects on adaptation. The CIRCLE 2 climate adaptation infobase[8] has been collecting and presenting these. Furthermore JPI Climate is aiming to align research, including on adaptation, at national level[9]. Climate-ADAPT aims to complement these activities by focusing on EU level research projects.
EU funded research projects on adaptation are already accessible via the CORDIS database[10]. The added value of the Climate-ADAPT database is to enable an overview and easy screening via filter criteria and access to the results of all relevant EU funded research and other projects on adaptation (via links to the original project websites).
The Climate-ADAPT database shows the growing knowledge on adaptation in Europe. In February 2015, 1525 items were available online in the Climate-ADAPT database from which 397 (26%) are research and knowledge projects[11]. Around 44% of the ‘Research and knowledge projects’ included in the Climate-ADAPT database have started in 2009 and 2010 (see figure 1).
Figure 1 – Distribution of ‘Research and knowledge projects’ per start year in the Climate-ADAPT database as of February 2015.
88 % of the research and knowledge projects covered in the database are characterised as being at ‘Europe’ scale and 12% as of ‘Global’ scale. Furthermore, these projects cover adaptation in the relevant sectors (see figure 2).
Figure 2 – Distribution of type of data per sector in the Climate-ADAPT database as of February 2015.
Important outputs of adaptation projects have also been added to the database through different item categories (e.g. “Publications and reports”, “Tools” etc.). Due to the diversity of results these cannot be statistically measured in the same way. The metadata available for these outputs are included in Annex IV.
b) Research information in the web content:
In addition to the provision of research projects and their results in the database, the “research projects page” is intended to highlight and present in more depth only the most relevant FP7/Horizon 2020 projects[12]. Specifically, the purpose of this page is to present a summary of the main EU research projects for decision makers in Europe.
The more in-depth information for the most relevant projects highlighted on the research projects page covers the following topics:
· The challenge
· Project objectives
· Methodology
· Results (including links to the respective Climate-ADAPT database items)
· Project partners.
It is challenging to select the most ‘relevant’ projects and project results from the large amount and variety of EU funded research projects available or that have recently started. So far, the update of the EU “research projects” page has been carried out on a case-by case basis, for example through the involvement of the EEA in different research projects advisory groups and by participating in stakeholder meetings. Furthermore EEA receives regularly an overview from DG Research and Innovation on recently approved new projects (e.g. Horizon2020). Many research projects contact EEA directly since they have been requested to present results from their projects in Climate-ADAPT. So far, four projects have been presented on these pages (MEDIATION, CLIMSAVE (finalised), ClimateCost and ECONADAPT (ongoing)).
c) More systematic updating
In addition to these activities the EEA, supported by ETC/CCA, has performed a more systematic analysis of EU-funded research projects (LIFE+, FP7 and H2020). In line with the main principles of the Climate-ADAPT updating (see section 3) a set of criteria has been created to guide the systematic and effective selection of the relevant research projects. The selected projects were screened based on the available information in the European Commission’s CORDIS database and in the Copernicus project database[13].
The screening had two objectives:
1. Identify projects and their results that are relevant for adaptation but not yet included in the Climate-ADAPT database
2. Identify a small number of “key relevant” projects based on specific criteria for inclusion in Climate-ADAPT through a separate page (“research projects” page).
Regarding the first objective - 231 EU FP 7 projects and 29 H20202 projects in the CORDIS database were screened to see which of these met the criteria for the selection of content for the Climate-ADAPT database (see Annex V). These criteria are relatively broad, leading to include also projects that cover observations and projections and sector specific questions. From the screened projects 31 projects have been identified which should be added to the database whereas 40 of the identified projects were already included in the database. Details of the screening process are available on the Eionet forum[14].
These projects also include a range of pre-operational Copernicus projects. EEA will consider which of these projects and their results will be added to the database. In particular regarding pre-operational Copernicus projects EEA will organise a separate discussion with the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) and with the coordinators of these projects on the best way to include information in Climate-ADAPT. It is intended to create a specific Copernicus Climate Services page in Climate-ADAPT in 2016.
Regarding the second objective of the screening an additional analysis of EU research projects focused on the projects that are regarded as most relevant, covering the following three broad topics (‘criteria’):
1. General CCIVA methodologies;
2. Costs and benefits of adaptation;