Climate services are a rapidly evolving information service product group

Climate services (CS) entail the transformation of climate observation and projection data, sometimes merged with other data, into customized products such as projections, educational and descriptive information, trends, economic analyses, assessments, risk maps, consultancy products, impact monitoring information, etc. etc. CS can refer to intra-annual (seasonal) projections, multi-annual projections and information, long-term projections and information, and historical episodes.

CS are a rapidly evolving information service product group. Several sections within the current portfolio, such as seasonal projections, have existed already for decades, but with the emergence of climate change adaptation (CCA) planning in Europe and elsewhere a much richer product portfolio and more alternative supply chains are developing. In this situation of many options and mismatch risks it is important to better understand the logic driving the market evolution.

The current climate services market and the innovation potential will be surveyed

The review of climate services market characteristics will be conducted based on a literature review, an online survey and the PESTEL approach. First, literature will be reviewed to identify clusters of barriers in the above-mentioned fields (political, economical …). The results of this review will be used to develop a survey. This survey will address both providers and users of climate services asking them, which types of barriers they face in developing / providing and using climate services as well as they opinions on how these barriers can be avoided, reduced or prevented. Applying the PESTEL approach (which is an interactive, dialog-oriented approach) afterwards will help to refine these broad findings from the literature review and the survey.

Business models and resourcing of different types of CS providers will be assessed

Literature surveys and more interactive formats will also play a major role in the assessment of resourcing of providers and users (including an inventory of business models, financial and human resources etc.), the analysis of the role, significance and transparency of quality assurance procedures as well as all the relevant features related to infrastructures such as data collection, matching, storing and distribution. In general, these tasks will review the available relevant literature and refining the findings in interviews.

Interactional formats to be applied in the co-design exercises will be developed

Finally, we will come up with a proposition for a multi-layer perspective on climate services and its market in the three sectors (Finance, Tourism, Urban planning) that EU-MACS is focusing on. This perspective will be developed based on the previous tasks described above and complemented by deskwork on key policy areas and expert interviews. As innovations do not take place in a “vacuum” the challenge is to identify patterns of barriers and enablers for climate services on their ways from niches products characterized by local knowledge into mainstreamed regime developments.

To support identifying these patterns in the co-design explorations performed with the focus sector stakeholders, a suite of interactional formats will be developed in order to conduct the dynamic analysis. The interactional formats include for instance Constructive Technology Assessments, Living Labs and PESTEL methodologies.

Outputs