We are delighted to announce that this month, a paper written in partnership with the University of East Anglia, WEMC and several other distinguished institutions, has been published in the Climate Services journal.

Focusing on the challenges facing the climate services market and the identification of users and their needs and expectations, this paper describes how to effectively develop and communicate complex climate information through a process of iterative engagement with a range of stakeholders. It discusses how these challenges were tackled during the European Climatic Energy Mixes (ECEM) project, part of the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), in order to deliver a pre-operational, proof-of-concept climate service for the European renewable energy sector. This is now being developed into the C3S Energy operational service which will further build the community of practice developed during ECEM.

“Closing the usability gap between complex climate data sets and real-world decision making is not an overnight process. This paper provides a very practical description and honest assessment of how the ECEM team worked with stakeholders to narrow this gap and to deliver climate information which is credible, legitimate and salient for the renewable energy sector.”

Dr Clare Goodess, School of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia

From the outset, the ECEM team had a clear vision of what they wanted to achieve based on their understanding of the potential new opportunities which climate services offer the energy industry, as well as previous experience in producing data sets likely to be relevant for this community. However, in the spirit of co-design and co-development, this vision was not imposed on external stakeholders. Instead, the team devised an interactive and evolving process of stakeholder engagement keeping them flexible and able to respond to users’ expectations and use cases.

To read the paper in full or the practical implications section: