Background

Climate Change Impact assessment and related Adaptation research are emerging scientific and policy areas in Europe. Several international political frameworks, commitments and initiatives are currently acting as main scientific-technological drivers and shaping research activities. Interactions between science and policy have developed into unprecedented levels of intensity. Expert scientific advice has been increasingly called upon to enable informed decision-making, but linking scientific knowledge and authoritative political decision-making is not a straightforward task.

Coordinating nationally developed knowledge (typically via research programmes) with European and international frameworks is a growing demand. Making sure that political investments such as the ones related to climate Adaptation are cost effective is a continuous need. Global challenges such as Climate Change makes the coordination of high quality research an absolute imperative to support national and European actions.

CIRCLE-2 is focused on the interface between Climate Change science and policy. Through the promotion of networking activities it aims to maximise the degree to which research outcomes address both national and European climate policy needs.

A structuring impact on the European Climate Change research landscape can only be achieved if joint research funding is put into practice and its results transferred in effective ways. CIRCLE-2 aims to further reinforce the coordination and cooperation between national and regional climate research programmes.

It is CIRCLE-2's intention to contribute to these efforts along three complementary ways:

• Support a common research agenda and joint programming foresight activities (WP DESIGN) helping to structure a common language and framework for policy relevant Adaptation research;
• Fund Adaptation research though transnational joint calls and other joint activities (WP FUND) contributing to a durable cooperation between European climate research programmes and their funders;
• Make available existing knowledge on Adaptation and foster the production of research along identified needs (WP SHARE) contributing to the development of a European knowledge base on Climate Change.

Coordination of Research Activities

The ERA-Net scheme objective is to develop and strengthen the coordination of national and regional research programmes and help reducing fragmentation across the European Research Area (ERA). 

Under the ERA-NET scheme, programme 'owners' (typically ministries or regional authorities) and 'managers' (typically research councils or other research agencies) can identify research programmes they wish to coordinate or open up and develop joint activities including the support of joint calls for transnational projects.

CIRCLE-2 ERA-Net History