H2020 ERA4CS Project: European Research Area for Climate Services

Within the European Research Area (ERA), the ERA4CS Consortium aims to boost Climate Services (CS) research, including climate adaptation, mitigation, and disaster risk management, enabling regions, cities, and key economic sectors to develop opportunities and strengthen Europe's leadership. This consortium views CS as driven by user demands for knowledge to address the impacts of climate variability and change, as well as guidance for both researchers and decision-makers in policy and business. ERA4CS will focus on developing a "climate information translation" layer that will bridge user communities and climate system sciences.

It involves the development of tools, methods, standards, and quality control to obtain reliable, qualified, and customized information required by the various field actors to make smart decisions. ERA4CS will boost the JPI Climate initiative by mobilizing more countries within EU Member States and associated countries, involving both Research Conducting Organizations (RPOs) and Research Funding Organizations (RFOs), national climate services, and diverse academic disciplines, including the social sciences and humanities. ERA4CS will launch a joint co-funded transnational call, with more than 16 countries and up to €75 million, with two complementary themes:

1. An “effective” theme, supported by 12 ORPs, on co-development for user needs and action-oriented projects.
2. an “in-kind” theme, supported by 28 OPRs, on the institutional integration of the research components of national informatics.

Finally, the additional ERA4CS activities will initiate a strong partnership between JPI Climate and other key European and international initiatives (such as Copernicus, KIC-Climate, JPI, WMO/GFCS, Future Earth, Belmont Forum...) to work towards a common vision and multi-annual implementation strategy, including better alignment of national programmes and activities up to 2020 and beyond.