Climatelabs

Context

Climate Labs seeks to strengthen the applied research and innovation capacities of ten partner universities from Mexico, Brazil and Colombia through the design and implementation of Social Innovation Labs for mitigation and adaptation to Climate Change. In a network with Universities from Spain, France, and Italy, plus Ashoka as a non-academic expert partner, the project seeks to build interdisciplinary and multi-stakeholder labs that will institutionalize the applied research and innovation for climate change in the territories the partners are inserted.

In a term of three years, the project expects to train scholars, students and staff members in Latin America, who will form changemaker leader teams, design and implement labs according to the needs, strengths, challenges and characteristics of the institutions and territories they serve. In this period, each university will also implement a pilot project, get connected with international relevant networks as well as other national institutions, build the physical and virtual infrastructure of the lab, and develop strategies for the sustainability and scalability of the project.

The project seeks, ultimately, to build strong and connected areas of innovation and applied research within universities impacting in the overall capacities and strategies of the partner countries to mitigate and adapt to climate change.

Goals

Identify and match social and ecological challenges related to climate change with the internal capacities of institutions to implement social innovation projects.
Design and apply online and offline instruments to strengthen innovative capacities for applied research in partner Universities to tackle challenges related to climate change.
Design and implement Social Innovation Labs for Climate Change in partner Universities.
Implement pilot projects of social innovation in climate change according to the identified challenges and needs of each territory.
Disseminate the methodologies and results for their use by other HEI in Latin America and the world.