EUropean MArket for Climate Services – a European project on which ENoLL has been working on from November 2016 until October 2018 focused on an emerging but highly relevant topic of climate services. The project took off with an ambitious aim to identify constraints and enablers in the climate services market. It analysed market structures, drivers, obstacles and opportunities from scientific, legal, technical, ethical, socioeconomic and governance point of view. In this article we look back at EU-MACS’ highlights and outputs relevant for Living Labs.

What are climate services?

This term describes the transformation of climate-related data (obtained by climate scientists), to customised products which can better equip decision makers in climate-sensitive sectors and help them make an informed decision that will benefit the society. Customised products include:

• Projections
• Forecasts
• Information
• Trends
• Economic analysis
• Assessments
• Counselling on best practices
• Development and evaluation of solutions

ENoLL focused on the Urban Planning sector. Two significant outputs were produced which help identify the type of services and processes that should be provided for the planning of urban environments:

1. A Policy Brief on “Potential for climate services market enhancement and related innovation for urban planning”
2. Guidelines for developing & implementing Living Labs for Climate Services in urban planning

Potential for climate services market enhancement and related innovation for urban planning: Conclusions & Recommendations

• The key solution to overcome the barriers in climate service use is to co-design climate services together with end users.
• This should be supported by rigorous social network analysis and information needs elicitation to better understand information flows and needs at the user side.
• Co-designed climate services could account for the existing limits in the organization (e.g. municipality) information sharing process and could be adapted to the local institutional framework for urban planning.
• The experiments carried out in EU MACS demonstrated that a collaborative design, acquisition and use of climate services, involving institutional actors, citizens and private actors, is feasible and can resolve broad scoped information need.
• Most of the detected barriers to climate services use relate to adaptation policy making: Mitigation (i.e.reduction) is prioritised over adaptation;
• Short term policy cycles reduce the willingness to implement long term adaptation measures; the lack of tools for assessing the effectiveness of adaptation measures affects public awareness about the role of adaptation measures in reducing climate related risks.

Guidelines for developing & implementing Living Labs for Climate Services in urban planning

The set of guidelines developed throughout the EU-MACS project focus specifically on the context of the project and elements that were highlighted as important recommendations for the project stakeholders, rather than aiming to provide a comprehensive list. The five themes highlighted in these guidelines are:

1. Quadruple helix stakeholder engagement:
2. Placing the citizens at the centre of innovation
3. Enhancing cross-disciplinary collaboration & communication
4. Prototype & test
5. Adapting to change

Guidelines for Living Labs in Climate Services

Through ENoLL’s involvement in the project, a set of guidelines were developed for the development of climate services by closely involving end-users and other stakeholders the Living Lab way. The guidelines for Living Labs in CS are published on the project website and feature ENoLL Living Lab methodologies such as panel management (imec Living Lab) and Framework for Agile Living Labs (imec Living Lab), and was supported by BIRD Living Lab

About

The European Social Innovation Competition, launched in memory of Diogo Vasconcelos, is a challenge prize run by the European Commission across all European countries, now in its sixth year. The 2018 Competition is titled RE:THINK LOCAL and seeks to find the most innovative projects, products, services, business models and collaborations that empower young people to participate fully in a changing economy.

http://eusic.challenges.org/

EUSIC’18 mission

The competition calls for social innovations that are inspired by, make use of or address specific local characteristics creating opportunities for young people in the new economy, also known as the ‘Fourth Industrial Revolution’. New technologies have led to trends such as improved connectivity, automation, decentralised manufacturing and digitalization. However, the impact of these trends is uneven: some regions and communities benefit, whereas others experience job losses and deindustrialisation

New technologies and ways of working have the potential to revitalise regions facing problems. Innovative solutions can build resilience within communities, address their specific needs and generate sustainable economic activity and employment opportunities.

Young people must be involved, engaged and empowered to make the most of new opportunities and supported to develop the skills and capabilities to harness change. This happens on a local level. An opportunity exists to ensure young people are not only resilient but also equipped to shape and lead the new economy.

In particular, the competition was calling for proposals in the form of:

• Initiatives that use new technologies and ways of working to provide opportunities for marginalised youth within their local communities;
• Ideas that assist young people who wouldn’t otherwise have become innovators to create their own opportunities for smart, inclusive and sustainable employment in their local environment;
• Ideas co-created with young people to respond to specific requirements in their local community for skills, experiences and opportunities;
• Solutions to improve the quality of life and financial security of youth in irregular work
• Innovations that provide information, advice and guidance to young people so they can navigate their options in the new economy;
• Programmes that equip the next generation of workers with skills that allow young people to harness technological change.

ENoLL role

• Assessment of 250 entries and recommendation of judges from different countries for the selection of the semi-finalists.

• Selection of Local Mentors from Living Labs across Europe to support the semi-finalists through their development process and provide them with specialized assistance. We will deliver a workshop at the Academy on user-centred design. We will contribute to mapping the social innovation ecosystem in Europe to help connect semi-finalists with relevant support organisations.

• Contribution to the communications strategy and tested messaging documents to make sure they were culturally appropriate. We will use the digital toolkit to spread the word about the Competition through their communication channels (newsletters, social media, blogs etc). The toolkit will be shared with Living Labs across Europe and Horizon 2020 countries and will be actively promoted by 10 particular target countries each year.

•  Identifying speakers and venues and participation at key events.