Uniting stakeholders to co-create user-friendly climate services

I-CISK is bringing people into the centre of climate services to ensure that they are designed with users in mind. This is giving actors the right information to make climate-smart decisions. Across the project’s living labs, it has established seven Multi-Actor Platforms, a place for diverse stakeholders to come together and address issues in a meaningful way.

About the project

To make climate-smart decisions that counter current extreme climate events and future climatic changes, all actors need tailored climate information that is relevant to their needs. 

While climate science is developed on a global scale, it often overlooks local needs and knowledge. This disconnect can limit the usefulness of climate information for those on the ground.

I-CISK aims to bridge this gap by innovating how climate services (the climate information and tools that support decision-making) are developed. The project is co-producing climate services by involving all actors of the climate service value chain, with significant contributions from key stakeholders and end-users representing multiple sectors of the economy.

Figure 1: Climate Services Value Chain

Description of success

As part of its work, I-CISK formed seven living labs across Europe (the Netherlands, Spain, Italy, Hungary, Greece, Georgia) and Africa (Lesotho), in diverse geographical regions that are particularly sensitive to climate change (semi‐arid, deltas, and snowpack-dependent river basins). Each living lab was designed to tackle local area-specific challenges with the involvement of the end-users of climate services. Across these living labs, the project successfully established seven Multi-Actor Platforms (MAPs), collaborative systems that join together diverse stakeholders to address complex issues through dialogue, co-design, and co-creation. 

These user-centred climate services aim to enable stakeholders from various sectors of the economy, such as water management, agriculture, tourism, energy, and environment, to address challenges posed by various climatic hazards (e.g., droughts, water scarcity, floods, and heatwaves). A novel feature and value addition of most of these climate services is the integration of local data and local knowledge provided by the MAP members alongside global and scientific data, knowledge, and tools such as those available through the EU’s Copernicus programme.

Highlights

• Seven MAPs were successfully established and operationalised in diverse geographical and climate change hotspot regions in the EU and beyond.
• In the MAPs, over 50 stakeholder organisations and more than 100 individuals have voluntarily worked with the I-CISK project partners to co‐create climate services relevant to their needs.
• MAP members have made highly valuable contributions to I-CISK’s co-creation process and outputs, such as the user-centred design of its open-access web-based climate service platform.
• The co-creation approaches developed by I-CISK in its living labs, including collaboration with MAPs, can be used to develop the next generation of climate services and have the potential to enable citizens, stakeholders, and decision-makers to factor climate change and action into their own decisions.

Outputs           

I-CISK has published various resources that are available to download on its website. These include reports on the characterisation of the project’s living labs, co-designing user-driven climate services, and climate service implementation and business development.

Impact

I-CISK has empowered MAP members and other stakeholders involved in the living labs to make well-informed decisions that address risks from multiple climatic hazards. Furthermore, coordination and collaboration between stakeholders have been improved within the living labs. Learning was fostered both within and between the living labs, which enhanced knowledge and technical capacity. 

Overall, the MAPs have contributed to a change in how climate services and their associated knowledge and information are used, and allow climate service users (e.g., MAPs participants) to become active contributors to climate action.

Lessons

Several important lessons have been learnt throughout the course of the MAPs process that serve future efforts:

• Establishing and operationalising MAPs can be a slow process, but it is worthwhile to take the required time and effort to organise them.
• The I-CISK co-creation framework has been a very helpful guide and was applied in a flexible and context-sensitive manner.
• The careful selection of a diverse range of activities and formats (e.g., in-person/online meetings, workshops, surveys) and efficient scheduling of activities with MAPs members have been crucial to meaningfully engage others in the co-creation process while minimising stakeholder fatigue.
• The role of living lab lead teams was pivotal in organising project activities involving MAPs. Their commitment to the project objectives and profound dedication greatly contributed to bridging gaps in understanding among climate services developers and end-users.   

Success story developed by Ecorys Brussels NV on behalf of the European Commission and published by the European Commission at: https://projects.research-and-innovation.ec.europa.eu/en/strategy/strategy-2020-2024/environment-and-climate/european-green-deal/green-deal-projects-support/green-deal-success-stories/uniting-stakeholders-co-create-user-friendly-climate-services