HORIZON EU | SMARTER: Systemic Transformation Towards Local and Regional Climate Resilience

Project summary:

Different climate risks are considered in climate adaptation strategies at the local, regional, and national level, as well as in the EU Adaptation to Climate Change Mission. The interdependencies between risks are also increasingly considered.

However, achievement of full climate resilience requires going much further: considering interdependencies across sectors, spatial scales, governance levels, and knowledge domains. The systemic challenges behind the risks are to be addressed, creating synergies that increase public support and make adaptation more affordable. Recognizing these systemic challenges also requires standardization to optimize upscaling and replication. SMARTER aims to support a transformative change needed for systemic climate adaptation by addressing these cross-sectoral interdependencies.

To achieve this, we set up 10 Climate Adaptation Labs, spread over Europe, in which we develop and demonstrate a systemic approach, including supporting tools at the local and regional scale. The Labs host 5 demonstration pilots and 7 replication pilots, which have already identified different cross-sectoral domains that relate to their contextual climate adaptation challenges. Each of them contributes to a portfolio of solutions and guidelines for systemic climate adaptation. Solutions are built through participatory co-design and demonstration, combined with systemic foresight. Key outcomes include an integrated toolbox for systemic climate adaption, a harmonized portfolio of demonstrated solutions and evaluation framework, replication strategies, and road maps for climate adaptation with consideration for the financial and administrative aspects. SMARTER will directly impact regions and communities through the transformative solutions demonstrated, while they are empowered to realize the transformative change with the tools and approaches provided. This will increase their foresight capacity and accelerates the achievement of climate resilience.