Our Research

The Scientific Approach:

Impacts of climate change are happening as a result of extreme temperatures, sea-level rise, storm surges, or droughts. Communities and governments across the globe are preparing through actions to reduce its impacts and increase climate resilience. However, progress made to date is still poorly understood and tracked due to the lack of a clear way to evaluate how well the world is adapting. Further barriers include unclear goals and metrics for adaptation and the absence of an inclusive definition of adaptation success.

IMAGINE Adaptation aims to redefine the concept of adaptation success in urban areas to incorporate elements beyond technical definitions. In doing so the project will consider social factors such as equity and justice, along with addressing potential maladaptive outcomes that could arise from certain adaptation strategies. By combining expert and local perspectives and fostering a continuous learning process, the project seeks to develop a more comprehensive and effective framework for evaluating and achieving transformative urban adaptation.

Work Packages

IMAGINE Adaptation
will be delivered through
four timely and ambitious
work packages (WPs)

WP1 Successful Adaptation

To enable evaluation and learning from diverse understandings of adaptation, ‘IMAGINE adaptation’ will gather expert and local views to reformulate the concept of adaptation success.

WP2 Monitoring and Evaluation

The project will then explore the trends and needs regarding monitoring and evaluation and how these may enable or hinder adaptation.

WP3 Urban Case Studies

The findings will be used in 12 urban case studies worldwide where local actors and team members will engage in the processes of evaluation and learning from ongoing adaptations.