Introductions

The course was developed by the University of Groningen Campus Fryslân and the Global Center on Adaptation.

The actual course design was done by a smaller team of experts:

Dr. Karsten Schulz – lead developer and educator of this course

Karsten Schulz is Assistant Professor for Governance and Innovation at the University of Groningen. His research focuses on the governance of climate adaptation and explores how digital technologies such as blockchain and artificial intelligence can support societal responses to climate change. He also coordinates the Master’s specialization in Climate Adaptation Governance at the University of Groningen and has worked on different aspects of climate adaptation for almost a decade. His professional experience includes consultancy work in the field of digitalization as well as positions with international organizations and adaptation-related research projects, particularly in West Africa and Southeast Asia.

Tim Huiskes – lead developer of this course

Tim Huiskes works as a lecturer and doctoral researcher in the chair group on Governance and Innovation of the Research Institute at the Campus Fryslân faculty within the University of Groningen. The main focus of his PhD research is on the global governance of climate change adaptation. Hence, he is closely involved in the development of the new master’s specialization on climate adaptation governance. In the past, Tim contributed to urban resilience research on the nexus between climate change adaptation, disaster risk reduction, and sustainable development in Ireland, Indonesia, and Colombia.

Tom Spits – online learning designer

Tom Spits works as online learning design specialist and video-in-education expert at University of Groningen. He specialises in designing Massive Open Online Courses and has co-created all of University of Groningen’s FutureLearn courses since 2014.

Online learning design
The course was co-developed with support from educational specialist Wytze Koopal.

Support

During this course run, our mentor Zarina Buckert will be actively engaged and on hand for any questions or issues that may arise. If needed, she willl pass on questions to the different educators.

We also thank Beatrix, David, Frans, Karolina and Lena for their wonderful support in getting all texts, videos and images to the platform.

Global Center on Adaptation

During the development of this course, we worked together with the Global Center on Adaptation (GCA). The GCA is an international organization, which works as a solutions broker to accelerate action and support for international and local adaptation solutions. They partner with the public and private sector to ensure we learn from each other and work together for a climate resilient future. Founded in 2018, the GCA is hosted by the Netherlands, working from its headquarters in Rotterdam and has a knowledge and research hub in Groningen. The GCA is establishing a worldwide network of regional offices in Africa, Asia and the Americas, starting with its regional hubs for climate adaptation in Beijing, Dhaka and Abidjan. Through this evolving network of offices and teams, the organization engages in high-level policy activities, new research contributions, communications, and technical assistance to governments, international organisations, civil society and the private sector.

The Global Center on Adaptation is the Managing Partner of the Global Commission on Adaptation co-chaired by Ban Ki-moon, Bill Gates and Kristalina Georgieva, formed to mobilize knowledge resources and catalyse political support for urgent action to climate adaptation solutions. The GCA is also the Managing Partner of the Vulnerable Twenty (V20) Group of Ministers of Finance and to the Climate Vulnerable Forum, a group of 48 developing countries highly vulnerable to climate change. Following the 2021 Climate Adaptation Summit hosted by the Prime Minister of the Netherlands, the GCA is driving a concrete Adaptation Action Agenda to carry forward visionary efforts to significantly scale up adaptation over the next decade.

Experts from GCA that helped create this course are:

Shuaib Lwasa

Shuaib Lwasa is a Principal Researcher on Governance at the Global Center on Adaptation. Shuaib has over 22 years of university teaching and research experience as a Professor of Urban Sustainability at Makerere University. He has worked extensively on interdisciplinary research projects focused on African cities but also in South Asia. His publications are in the areas of urban mitigation of and adaptation to climate change, urban environmental management, spatial planning, and disaster risk reduction, urban sustainability. Shuaib is a Coordinating Lead Author of the IPCC WG III Chapter 8 “Urban Systems and Human Settlements” and Lead Author for the IPCC Special report on Land and Climate Change.

Floris Boogaard

Floris Boogaard holds a PhD from Delft University of Technology with research on the quality of stormwater and optimising the long term efficiency of small scale Nature Based Solutions. In April 2013 Floris accepted a professorship Spatial Transformations at Hanze University of Applied Sciences in Groningen. After 22 years of experience in consultancy and management at the Tauw group, he joined Deltares as a senior consultant in the field of climate adaptation and is currently an affiliated researcher at the Global Center on Adaptation. Floris is the founder of Climate Action tools as ClimateScan and ClimateCafe to make cities more resilient to climate change. Research fields include climate adaptation, nature-based solutions, interdisciplinary monitoring, water supply (quality) management and urban planning.

Sander Chan

Sander Chan is a political scientist specialising in transnational climate action and global environmental politics. He is a senior researcher at the Global Center on Adaptation (GCA) and at the German Development Institute/Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE) and adjunct assistant professor at the Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development, Utrecht University. His research areas include public-private partnerships, sustainable development, orchestration of transnational action, and corporate voluntary environmental behaviour. Sander is a steering committee member of Galvanizing the Groundswell of Climate Actions, a network of experts that facilitates a series of open dialogues, aiming to bring the groundswell of climate actions from cities, regions, companies, and other groups to a higher level of scale and ambition. Sander obtained his PhD from VU University Amsterdam (2014), authoring his thesis on the emergence and effectiveness of Partnerships for Sustainable Development in global and local implementation.

Over to you

Now it is over to you. Please use the comment section below to introduce yourself. Please explain why you are following this course, share your previous experiences with the course theme (if applicable), and also let us know what you hope to learn. We invite you to get to know your fellow learners by reading the comments.