Polibienestar leads social research for a European project to promote fairer climate transitions

The Polibienestar Research Institute at the University of Valencia (UV) is participating in the European project ‘Just Mitigation and Adaptation Pathways in Climate Transitions’ (JUST IN CLIME), an initiative funded with €4,998,187 by the Horizon Europe programme (Cluster 5), which will begin in October 2026 and last for four years. The project aims to analyse how to design climate policies that, in addition to being effective against climate change, are socially just and have the support of the public.

The transition to a climate-neutral economy is one of the main challenges for Europe in the coming decades. However, the measures needed to reduce emissions or transform production systems can generate inequalities if they are not designed with their social impacts in mind. JUST IN CLIME starts from this premise and seeks to contribute to climate policies that explicitly integrate social justice criteria, so that the benefits and costs of the ecological transition are distributed evenly among different social groups.

To this end, the project will develop tools and methodologies that enable public administrations and organisations to assess the social impact of their climate strategies. Among the main expected results is a digital self-assessment platform, called JIC-SAT (Self-Assessment Tool), which will make it possible to analyse the extent to which climate plans incorporate social justice criteria. The project will also develop a set of climate justice indicators that will make it possible to assess aspects such as the distribution of costs and benefits, citizen participation in decision-making and mechanisms for redressing previous inequalities. Based on these analyses, roadmaps for a just transition will be developed to guide governments and organisations in the design of more inclusive climate policies.

Within the framework of the project, the Polibienestar Institute, led by Jorge Garcés Ferrer, plays a central role in social and participatory research. The UV team will coordinate nine climate strategy laboratories in different countries, workspaces in which researchers, public officials, and citizens will collaborate in the design of climate policies adapted to local contexts. These pilot projects will be carried out in Europe, Africa, the Middle East and North America, with the aim of incorporating diverse perspectives into the analysis of climate justice.

In addition, Polibienestar will lead the design of a large-scale international survey in the nine participating countries, with a total of 7,200 people expected to be surveyed. This study will incorporate a quasi-experimental approach that will allow for a comparison of the perceptions of those who participate in the project’s deliberative processes with those who do not, in order to analyse how citizen participation influences institutional trust and social acceptance of climate policies.

JUST IN CLIME is coordinated by the Spanish consultancy Senior Europa SL (KVC) and brings together 16 organisations from 13 countries in Europe, Africa, the Middle East and North America, including universities, civil society organisations and public policy experts. The project aims to generate comparative knowledge on climate justice and contribute to the development of governance frameworks that enable the ecological transition to be addressed in a socially sustainable manner.

The project’s results are expected to contribute to strengthening the international debate on climate justice and to providing practical tools for the design of more inclusive public policies. In this context, the participation of the University of Valencia reinforces its role in European research on climate governance and citizen participation.

Polibienestar is a public research institute at the University of Valencia specialising in the analysis of public policies and the development of social innovations aimed at improving the functioning of welfare systems. With extensive experience in European projects, the institute carries out applied interdisciplinary research in areas such as governance, sustainability, social innovation and citizen participation.

• Post Categories
• News