Leveraging climate resilience capacities by (un)learning from transdisciplinary research projects

Abstract

Climate adaptation in Europe faces a significant implementation gap: while high-level policies set ambitious resilience goals, local knowledge integration and policy uptake remain slow due to entrenched institutional routines. Reflecting on lessons from three transdisciplinary European projects, this article aims to provide a fresh perspective on how climate resilience can be effectively enhanced through projects that facilitate institutional (un)learning. We tailor a climate resilience capacities framework to diagnose stewarding, unlocking, transforming and orchestrating capacities that enable coordinated shifts from risk-averse to risk-embracing adaptation. These capacities emerge from, and generate, processes that actively dismantle obsolete learnings while fostering novel, resilience-oriented behaviors and routines. Key examples include climate resilience pathways and the empowerment of champions and institutional entrepreneurs, an integrated approach and neutral facilitation and the formation of networks such as Communities of Practice and Real-World Labs. We propose that, while already successful ex-post, embedding this thinking at the conceptualization phase can further accelerate the transition to adaptive societies capable of embracing uncertainty and enhancing climate resilience.