Regions4Climate tests innovations to accelerate climate adaptation in the EU
The Regions4Climate project brings together 44 partners from twelve different European regions to demonstrate innovations that enhance societal resilience to the impacts of climate change, in line with the Paris Agreement and the EU Green Deal. The Helsinki-Uusimaa Region is one of the partner regions.
Regions4Climate will deliver significant sociocultural, economic and environmental impacts during the 5-year duration of the project. At least 13.8 million people, inhabitants of the 12 project partner regions, are expected to directly benefit from the outcomes of the project, with potential upscaling to the ca. 746 million people living in Europe in the longer term.
The project will implement innovative actions to enhance climate resilience in close collaboration with stakeholders within the real-life environments of partner regions. By employing a cross-sectoral approach, the project will develop and validate resilience solutions including novel technologies, their integration, and their application in combination with new business models and innovative policies. This will facilitate and empower decision-making and enhance regional resilience to climate change by providing a suite of proven, scalable and easily replicable climate change adaptation solutions.
Climate adaptation has become one of the main targets for Europe by 2030. As climate change escalates, the EU is facilitating the research and implementation of new societal innovations at the local level to accelerate our resilience.
− Climate change necessitates a paradigm shift in terms of how we interact with the world around us. As we seek to both adapt to and mitigate climate change, we must become increasingly resource- and water-efficient, working in harmony with nature and generating new knowledge and information that will enable society to thrive in the face of this major global challenge, explains Laura Wendling, a senior scientist from VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland and Coordinator of Regions4Climate.
Regions4Climate engages 12 European regions in developing and testing their own resilience plans and transformative adaptation pathways, enhanced by cross-border collaboration and knowledge exchange.
Markku Markkula, President of the Helsinki-Uusimaa Region and Vice President of the European Committee of the Regions emphasises the importance of cross-border collaboration to address climate challenges.
− The European Missions offer enormous pioneering opportunities in solving together the most wicked challenges we face. On climate change, mitigation and adaptation go hand-in-hand. Europe needs more public and private RDI investments in all phases of societal value chains to co-create societal innovations and to scale them up to active implementation in all parts of Europe and globally. Our region has the two largest cities in Finland, Helsinki and Espoo. They are pioneers in 100 Cities Mission, collaborating with other municipalities, industry, universities and research centres, and citizens to become active forerunners in breakthrough innovations. Helsinki-Uusimaa Region is thrilled about the launch of the Regions4Climate-project and its ambition to make Europe substantially better prepared for the various adapting measures by extending our European regional partnerships.
Besides the coordinating VTT Oy, project partners at Helsinki-Uusimaa include Forum Virium Helsinki Oy; Demos Research Institute Oy; University of Helsinki and the Helsinki-Uusimaa Regional Council. Also, the Nordic archipelago regions are represented in the project via Nordiska Skärgårdssamarbetet.
The five-year project, starting in January 2023, has received a total grant of 24,522,103.00€ from the European Commission under the Horizon Europe research and innovation programme addressing the topic of “Large scale demonstrators of climate resilience creating cross-border value.
For more information, please contact:
Heikki Kallasvaara
Senior Adviser, EU Affairs
heikki.kallasvaara@uudenmaanliitto.fi
EU project preparation and capabilities, Horizon Europe Programme and other direct EU programmes, Smart specialization – Industrial modernization and innovative services
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