The Climate Change Centre Austria (CCCA) was commissioned in November 2011 by the then Federal Ministry of Science and Research (BMWF) to develop a Science Plan for climate research in Austria. This is intended to contribute to the consolidation and focusing of existing climate research, taking into account the principles and strategies of Austrian research policy and the definition of priority research areas in climate research. As part of the project, the aim was to develop the Science Plan jointly and in coordination with a CCCA strategy for education and training in climate research. In addition to financial support from the BMWF, the project was made possible through extensive in-kind contributions from the CCCA community.
To implement the project, the Science Plan Working Group under the leadership of Georg Kaser (UIBK) and the Early Career Researchers Working Group under the leadership of Reinhard Mechler (IIASA/WU) were established. Education and training, however, will not be discussed further here.
From February 2012 to May 2013, there was an extensive participation process among Austrian climate researchers. Building on intensive discussion and coordination processes within working group meetings, shared objectives, research areas and process steps for a Science Plan were developed.
On 25 and 26 March 2013, a CCCA strategy workshop took place, in preparation for which an overview of the substantive expertise in Austrian climate research (existing priorities and competencies) as well as an overview of stakeholder perspectives on climate research in Austria were compiled. The workshop served as an initial discussion arena for the consensual development of a national Science Plan for climate research. The engaged and active participation of researchers from various disciplines and the establishment of thematic sub-working groups in these areas created an important foundation for the detailed elaboration of the Science Plan.
The central structural outcome was to task the defined sub-working groups beyond the workshop with accompanying the further development of the Science Plan as editors for their respective research areas. The following division of responsibilities was established:
Research Area I: "Physical Scientific Basis",
coordinated by Leopold Haimberger (Uni Wien)
Research Area II: "Vulnerability, Risks/Impacts and Adaptation",
coordinated by Markus Leitner (UBA)/Andreas Baumgarten (AGES)
Research Area III: "Mitigation and Societal Transformation",
coordinated by Wilfried Winiwarter (KFU)/Helmut Haberl (AAU)
The final project report of May 2013 provides a detailed documentation of the results of this extensive process and the work of the sub-working groups on the three research areas. This report is available to CCCA members upon login on this page.
Following the completion of the BMWF-funded project, the process of developing a Science Plan for Austrian climate research was continued and financially supported by CCCA through the Science Plan Working Group.
In June 2013, a broad community participation process was launched to coordinate the working paper on the Science Plan (coordinated by Georg Kaser and Bianca Rossmann). This document was sent to all those previously involved, with a request to circulate it further. The feedback received fed into the workshop on 14/15 November 2013. The aim of this workshop was to consolidate this feedback into a document accepted by all, so that Austrian climate researchers would be perceived by policy-makers and society as a coordinated climate research community. The workshop outcomes are documented in a detailed set of minutes, which are available to CCCA members upon login on this page.
Based on these results, work continued in the three sub-working groups in different ways. It was planned that the research needs identified during the preparation of the APCC-AAR14 would also be taken into account and integrated. However, as these were not yet available in their final version in autumn 2013 due to delays in completing the AAR14, there was an interruption in the development of the Science Plan.
Draft 2015
Due to numerous other commitments, Georg Kaser stepped down from leading the working group in autumn 2014. As members of the Science Plan Working Group and as those responsible for the Science Plan process on the CCCA board until June 2015, Helga Kromp-Kolb and Hans Stötter supplemented all previously existing documents with the research needs from APCC-AAR14 during the summer of 2015, edited them editorially, and merged them into a first draft version. Together with all existing documents, this first draft version was handed over to the CCCA board in summer 2015.
In the course of the revision, the chapter structure was expanded. In the introduction, the already existing chapter on self-understanding was supplemented with a section on science communication.
The main body of the Science Plan originally comprised three research areas. These were divided into six chapters and now address research priorities. Chapter 3.5 brings together research on societal transformation as a cross-cutting theme. This is justified by the fact that transformation research is cross-cutting (impact, adaptation and mitigation) and many fundamental research questions remain open in this field that are relevant not only to climate policy. This is also intended to emphasise that a dedicated funding stream for transformation research is considered important and necessary.
The final section of the research priorities addresses cross-cutting issues and individual specific thematic complexes, such as climate change in mountain regions, in urban areas, or extreme events.
The research priorities listed in the individual sections result from two processes: on the one hand, the research needs drawn from the original working group papers are listed there. On the other hand, the research needs defined in the APCC AAR14 have been integrated. Since the research needs are presented very inconsistently across the individual chapters of the AAR14, Helga Kromp-Kolb and Hans Stötter attempted to formulate a general description of the problem in each case (e.g. model improvements) and to illustrate the research needs with examples (e.g. higher spatial resolution). However, the first draft version of the Science Plan cannot and does not aim to capture all research needs comprehensively, as new research questions are continually emerging.
A chapter on the creation of framework conditions for research, as well as a description of the current state of climate research in Austria, round off the Science Plan Draft.
Version March 2017
In February 2016, the Science Plan Working Group was reactivated and expanded with new members. A public commenting process for the Science Plan took place from February to May 2016. The working group subsequently incorporated the received comments into the present document. To ensure quality, the development of the Science Plan in its final phase was accompanied by review editors. The Science Plan was presented to the 9th CCCA General Assembly in the March 2017 version and was adopted unanimously.