National Projects

The overarching goal of CLIMAX PO is to promote climate change adaptation through climate-smart water resource management at the watershed level, implementing tailored Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) based on local characteristics and climatic peculiarities within the watershed. This will be achieved by enhancing district-level governance in water resource management, ensuring coordination and coherence of policies, funding, and techniques; producing shared climate knowledge (tools and methodologies); building capacity and awareness, increasing stakeholder participation; improving water security and climate resilience through selected and replicable pilot actions within the river basin and beyond; and mobilizing complementary funding to support the implementation of extensive and costly measures focused on re-naturalization, flood risk mitigation, and prevention, integrating planning tools, and activating public engagement.

• CLIMAX PO Website

The project builds upon the existing innovation ecosystem in the region with the main objective of strengthening the intervention capacity of stakeholders, fostering their structural reinforcement and scalability, and developing and consolidating international collaborations.
The aim is to support the productive system of Emilia-Romagna, which is robust and highly competitive, towards a sustainable transition. This is in acknowledgment of the fact that ongoing and experienced emergencies have made the critical issues related to climate change and the unsustainable exploitation of natural resources even more urgent and evident. Through the involvement of universities, research institutions, laboratories, and innovation centers in the region, the research activities encompass materials for sustainability and ecological transition, production, storage and saving of clean energy, green manufacturing for a sustainable economy, smart solutions for mobility, housing, and energy towards a zero-carbon society, circular economy and blue economy, ecological transition based on high-performance computing and data technology.

• ECOSISTER Website

FOR.WELL focuses on the key role played by forests in improving human health and well-being. Through a comprehensive analysis of various forest variables (tree composition, density, greenery indications, and lighting), along with preferences and willingness to pay for ecosystem services, FOR.WELL will explore the link between forests and well-being from various psychological and physiological perspectives. In a broader perspective, the project focuses on the potential positive impacts of “forest bathing” and “forest therapy” activities on the more fragile Italian areas. The sociological contribution is therefore aimed at investigating how a re-centralization of forests and ecosystem services can contribute to the economic and social regeneration of the inner areas where they are located.