Polibienestar leading the social research component of the European JUST IN CLIME flagship project to promote fairer climate transitions

15/06/2026

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 to the tune of €4,998,187 by the Horizon Europe (Cluster 5) programme, which will begin in October 2026 and run for four years. The project aims to analyse how to design climate policies that, as well as 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 facing Europe in the coming decades. However, the measures needed to reduce emissions or transform production systems can create inequalities if they are not designed with their social impacts in mind. JUST IN CLIME is based on this premise and seeks to help ensure that climate policies explicitly integrate social justice criteria, so that the benefits and costs of the green transition are distributed fairly across different social groups.

To this end, the project will develop tools and methodologies enabling public administrations and organisations to assess the social impact of their climate strategies. Among the main expected outcomes is a digital self-assessment platform, known as JIC-SAT (Self-Assessment Tool), which will enable an analysis of the extent to which climate plans incorporate social justice criteria. Furthermore, the project will develop a set of climate justice indicators that will enable the assessment of aspects such as the distribution of costs and benefits, public participation in decision-making, and mechanisms for redressing pre-existing inequalities. Based on these analyses, roadmaps for a just transition will be developed to guide governments and organisations in designing 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, working spaces in which researchers, public officials and citizens will collaborate on the design of climate policies adapted to local contexts. These pilot projects will be carried out in regions across 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 projected total of 7,200 respondents. This study will employ a quasi-experimental approach, enabling a comparison of the perceptions of those participating in the project’s deliberative processes with those of non-participants, in order to analyse how citizen participation influences institutional trust and the social acceptance of climate policies.

JUST IN CLIME is coordinated by Kveloce (Senior Europa SL), a Valencian consultancy with extensive experience and an international reach, and brings together 16 organisations from 13 countries across 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 to contribute to the development of governance frameworks that enable the ecological transition to be tackled in a socially sustainable manner.

It is hoped that the project’s results will help to strengthen the international debate on climate justice and provide practical tools for designing more inclusive public policies. In this context, the University of Valencia’s participation 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.