This final report summarises the results of the actions to support the Mission Board for “Adaptation to Climate Change, including Societal Transformation” with forward-looking evidence.

In accordance with the Request, the proposed services, approaches to be adopted, and the concrete nature and form of the outputs have been shaped and validated through close interaction with the Mission Board (MB) via the Mission Secretariat, run by relevant European Commission (EC) services, throughout the implementation of the action.

As a result of the interactions with the Mission Secretariat, the following actions were taken:

1. Preparing a short paper Input to Mission Board on scoping activities & tasks
   (Deliverable 1)
2. Analysing national and regional funding programmes of selected countries for
   projects on Climate Change Adaptation, and conducting interviews with selected
   Mission Board members in preparation of a foresight workshop.
3. Preparing an input paper for the foresight workshop Input Document FoD CCA
   Workshop, 23 January 2020 (Deliverable 2).
4. Holding a foresight workshop (23 January 2020) with Mission Board members,
   European Commission representatives (Mission Secretariat), and foresight experts,
   and summarising the results of the workshop. The workshop served to identify
   barriers and solutions, enablers and impacts of climate change adaptation in a variety
   of thematic fields, including health, water, food and agriculture.
5. Developing and implementing a Delphi survey on assessing key aspects of the draft
   paper of the Mission Board. The survey addressed climate experts. They assessed
   future targets in thematic fields (e.g. financial risks, health, social infrastructure), and
   ranked related measures and R&I fields for importance.
6. Preparing and analysing the results of the Delphi survey: Delphi Survey results,
   July/August 2020 (Deliverables 3 and 4).

The report is structured along these deliverables.

The evolving complexity of global challenges is increasingly affecting the steering of European Research and Innovation which aims at addressing important present and future societal concerns. The idea of ‘watching futures’ to anticipate future possibilities and analyse the consequences of current choices to inform and shape a forward-looking EU R&I policy is continuously gaining ground. 

In this light, as part of the ‘European R&I foresight and public engagement for Horizon Europe’ study launched by the European Commission in connection to the Horizon Europe Foresight Network, a second series of online workshops will take place during October – November 2023.

The workshops, which will run for two hours each, will discuss insights stemming from thematic policy briefs compiled by expert panels, addressing possible future scenarios for critical issues (i.e., Interpretation of Criminal and Lawful Activities, Green Skills and Jobs, Big Tech, etc.). Following the presentation of each policy brief, each workshop will feature two focus groups: one involving the group of experts from the panel who developed the policy brief and one including representatives from topic-relevant EU-funded R&I projects. All events will foster extensive engagement with participants, including policymakers.