About Climate Futures

Climate Futures is a Centre for Research-based Innovation (abbreviated SFI in Norwegian), funded by the Research Council of Norway, and launched on October 1, 2020. Our goal is to generate long-term cooperation between companies, public organizations and research groups across sectors and disciplines to tackle one of the most urgent challenges of our time:

The changing nature of weather and climate poses a severe threat to the prosperity and well-being of our economy and society as a whole, but climate risk is inadequately managed due to knowledge gaps and deficiencies in the decision-making processes of businesses and public authorities.

We will address this critical challenge by working with nearly 40 partners to co-develop better methods and practices for climate risk management. The breadth and commitment of our consortium testify to an indisputable need for a large and cross-sectoral centre for addressing climate risks. It unites world-leading weather and climate scientists, economists and statisticians with industrial sectors – food production, energy, shipping, insurance, management consulting and risk management – and public authorities, including all the county governors in Norway. Together, we will expand established collaborations and ongoing initiatives to create an active industry-oriented research cluster.

The work in Climate Futures will be organized in user-driven projects, ranging from short pilots lasting a few weeks or months to long-term strategic programmes over several years. Such a project-based structure was chosen to ensure that each partner takes an active role in the implementation and performance of the centre’s activities, and to ensure cooperation between the partner organizations across sectors and disciplines.

The Climate Futures alliance was formed with a basis in the Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research, and the research partners include NORCE, The University of Bergen, NERSC, the Norwegian School of Economics, the Norwegian Computing Centre, MET Norway, SNF and Statistics Norway.

Our existing projects include CONFER, Seasonal Forecasting Engine, and the Bjerknes Climate Prediction Unit. For more information, please contact us at climatefutures@norceresearch.no.