Authored by Yacine Cissé

Climate change is a dominant challenge for Earth and its inhabitants, as numerous climate records are increasingly broken¹. The year 2023 was the warmest recorded year at 1.45° ± 0.12° above preindustrial levels². As we near the Paris Agreement on the 1.5°C lower limit on climate change, the United Nations Environment Programme³  describes this as one of many broken climate records— certainly not the right kind. Human activity and the resulting greenhouse gas emissions have contributed to the warming of the Earth and can be related to fast and widespread changes in Nature. Changes in the atmosphere, biosphere, and oceans, among other ecosystems are of particular importance for the extreme weather and climate events that have increasingly affected people and the environment globally in loss and damages^{1 4}.

Being among those who contribute the least to climate change but are among the most affected, Small Island Developing States (SIDS) have a particular experience of climate change. According to IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report, in terms of per capita emissions, Least Developed Countries (LDCs) (1.7t CO₂-eq) and SIDS (4.6t CO₂-eq) are among those who contribute the least compared to the global average (6.9t CO₂-eq)¹. In addition, among the global hotspots for vulnerability to climate hazards are SIDS alongside regions such as South Asia and West, Central, and East Africa. According to the United Nations Development Programme’s⁵ Multidimensional Vulnerability Index (MVI), SIDS are generally more vulnerable than their income levels would suggest concerning geographic, environmental, financial, and economic indicators.

What groups in SIDS are most vulnerable to climate change?

Generally speaking, vulnerability is highest in contexts of poverty, conflict, challenged access to basic services and resources, governance challenges, and high numbers of climate-sensitive livelihoods¹. Inequity and marginalization can contribute to worsened vulnerability due to factors such as gender, ethnicity, living in informal settlements, low income, and age, among others.Moreover, SIDS being among the most climate-vulnerable places, within those countries, some individuals and groups are on the frontlines as they are most at risk. These climate-vulnerable individuals and groups include, but are not limited to, women, children, low-income individuals, the elderly, the disabled, individuals with climate-sensitive livelihoods, and those living in locations of exposed risk to shocks^{6 7 8 9 10}.

The Importance of Inclusivity

Inclusivity is a key part of climate adaptation; inclusive adaptation planning and implementation are helpful to avoid worsened vulnerability. According to IPCC’s (2023) Sixth Assessment Report, inclusive community engagement processes support effective responses to climate challenges. As such, marginalized and climate-vulnerable individuals and communities must be included in adaptation work; adaptation is enabled by principles of climate and social justice, equity, inclusion, and just transitions.

What are Real-World Laboratories (RWLs)?

In research, an approach called Real-World Laboratories (RWLs) can provide such a space for adaptation engagement across various stakeholder groups, including the most climate-vulnerable and marginalized. RWLs are a concept out of sustainability science with a focus on transformative research and solving real-world problems; this research approach sets out transdisciplinary labs in real-world contexts. The main goal is societal transformation via experimental social learning processes^{11 12 13}. RWLs belong to a family of experimental approaches to transformative and transdisciplinary research, so they are not unique or entirely new in what they pursue and, in their approach¹⁴. These labs seek to bring together the advantages of research in settings of the real world and those of laboratory settings. Considering the multiple terms used to evoke various real-world laboratory approaches, for purposes of this guide and consistency, the term ‘real-world lab (RWL)’ will be used.

Methodology and Key Characteristics: RWLs address the aims of transformative research of understanding sustainability challenges and designing solutions¹⁵. The process of understanding challenges informs the potential governing of change and scientific evidence and knowledge on systems interventions. That is, RWLs enable sustainability transitions via the creation of transformation knowledge which informs both research and practice^{16 17}. In the creation of place-based evidence, RWLs employ various methodological approaches.

RWLs can then be understood as a combination of interdependent characteristics¹¹. These characteristics with which RWLs can be situated are the use of experimentation and transdisciplinarity as a core research method, the contribution to transformative research and aim to advance sustainability transformation, the long-term orientation and the scalability and transferability of research findings, scientific and social learning^{18 14 12}.

Transformation:RWLs contribute to sustainability transformation in their analysis of transformation dynamics and processes of change as well as transformative research in its development and application of solutions concerning sustainability challenges¹⁴ .

Experiments and Transdisciplinarity:Experiments and transdisciplinarity are core research methods for real-world laboratories. RWLs involve experimentation to generate actionable evidence for sustainability transitions; the labs constitute transdisciplinary infrastructure for conducting such experiments^{14 12} .

Long-term perspective, Scalability, and Transferability: RWLs, ideally, are long-term institutions oriented towards longer time horizons; compared to what the usual timeline of regular research projects allows, the labs can design, carry out, and evaluate transformation processes that would not take place otherwise¹². In the real-world laboratories, the focus should not be the long-term existence of labs, but rather that solutions have a long-term horizon¹⁴.

Learning: RWLs provide spaces for learning at an individual and systemic level where competency development can be facilitated^{12 14 19}. Focusing on the dynamics between the exchange of knowledge, action, and reflection, RWLs may allow for successful social learning by providing space for facilitating trust-building, communication, iteration, and conflict resolution between participants¹⁴.

Stakeholder Engagement and RWLs:

RWLs have important considerations for science-society interactions; the value is in science’s engagement in and for society¹². Such participation of non-research actors has implications for increased societal impact of research¹⁸. In RWLs there is a continuous focus on engagement from citizens in the experimentation process and via other participatory processes such as co-design, co-production, and evaluation^{12 14 20 21 22}; though the stage at which participation occurs may vary based on the research.

Co-design: The co-design phase represents the process by which researchers and practitioners meet on equal footing to establish a culture of co-leadership and define the project framework and set rules. Establishing a joint problem understanding should be followed by generating a mutual understanding of the system underlying the challenge. In addition, it is experts from the public (municipalities, public agencies, etc.) and private sector (businesses) that participate in this co-design process to jointly define the thematic focus and object of the lab²³. At this stage, practitioners take on the role of contributors of contextual knowledge, whereas researchers act as knowledge brokers and guide the development of a systems model^{16 24}. Some roles may be shared at this point such as facilitating co-design and coordinating expert inputs.

Co-production: The co-production phase represents the process of going beyond theoretical knowledge and taking the lab to an action space of experimentation, reflection, and calibration where learning takes place cyclically from ongoing actions¹⁶. At this stage, stakeholders engage in knowledge co-production as they generate and test actions in an innovative and collaborative process, and at the same time develop competencies for application¹⁴. The real-world interventions that occur during the co-production phase may have direct implications for practice in the form of new policies, business models, and collective mind-shifts, among others, representing outcomes of the co-production process.

Co-evaluation: It is through reflexivity and evaluation activities that involved stakeholders take advantage of real-world labs as learning platforms that support the development of individual competencies and capacity for further contributions to transformation²². It is for the co-evaluation and co-interpretation of outcomes that researchers and practitioners should come together; the results of this exercise should then inform and transfer back into science and practice systems. Transfer into practice is the process by which lessons learned about patterns of success and failure are used to support the creation of products such as guides, new practices and ways of doing. On the other hand, transfer into the scientific system reflects how results inform the methodological and theoretical state of the art of the concerned research disciplines, thereby contributing to scientific papers, articles, and other products.

The CLARE funded RECOVER project employs the transdisciplinary research approach of RWLs. This process aims to foster interaction between the research team and stakeholder groups, including vulnerable and marginalized groups, to co-create innovative locally adapted climate adaptation solutions. This iterative process of engaging in real-world laboratories then informs contributions to societal development and the scientific discourse thereby contributing to addressing adaptation needs and working towards innovative pathways.

Note: This blog is based on a full report that is forthcoming; and accessed here.

Featured photo credit: Dr. Simron Singh