The PhD Programme in Science and Management of Climate Change and the Doctoral School ChangeS organize a seminar  with Dr Christopher High (Lecturer in Communication and Systems at Open University, UK), entitled ” Building resilience: Local stakeholders, institutional capacity and adaptation to climate change”.

The event will take place on 15 March 2013 at Ca’Foscari University, Dep. of Economics (room E – San Giobbe), Venice, from 11:00 a.m.

Abstract
It is sometimes said that while managing the mitigation of climate is a global issue, adaptation is a local affair. This makes understanding the interlocking sets of institutions and actors of great interest in understanding and building adaptive capacity. Drawing in perspectives on local adaptive capacity, including social capital, communities of practice, network relationships, local agency and neo-endogenous development, this seminar will look at the ways that local responses to climate change are mediated within the context of multi-level governance.
The typical diversity of local stakeholders will be explored, along with the local and extra-local institutional dynamics that shape adaptive capacity and resilience. This discussion will be grounded in a case study of local adaptation policy in the highlands of Scotland in order to explore the policy and practice context for adaptation. The methodological implications for applied research will be drawn out, with a particular focus on stakeholder analysis, decision support and participatory technologies.

The speaker
Dr Christopher High is a Lecturer in Communication and Systems at the Open University in the UK. He has broad research interests in social learning and governance in environmental decision-making and community development, applied in the UK, Eastern Europe, India and East Africa. His projects and publications include research on adaptation to climate change in the UK rural sector, and policy research on adaptation in Europe to underpin CLIMSAVE, an FP7 project developing an integrated climate impact assessment tool for use with stakeholders.