From data to decisions

Many of these losses were attributable to floods, storms, heatwaves and droughts. 

To minimise losses and save lives, we urgently need reliable climate services that can provide accurate, actionable climate data, information and knowledge to guide decision-making and risk planning.   

Unfortunately, however, existing climate services often fall short of answering real-world needs, being too generic or disconnected from real-world decision-making. This leads to missed opportunities to take informed decisions that could protect people and profits.  

That’s why the EU-funded Climateurope2 project is working to bring together researchers, providers and end-users to improve the relevance, quality and equity of climate information—for smarter decision-making.

We caught up with Project Coordinator Sam Grainger to get the full story. 

Existing models of climate services frequently fall short because they don’t sufficiently reflect the complexity of decision-making contexts. Many focus on disseminating climate data without engaging with the practical, social or institutional factors that shape how information is used. Services can also be too generic, insufficiently tailored or disconnected from user needs, which limits their usefulness and uptake. There are also disparities in access: while some people are well-equipped to interpret and apply climate information, others lack the capacity or support. 

Importantly, the fragmented nature of guidance and the absence of agreed-upon standards around usability, legitimacy and communication further complicate matters. Right now, there’s limited integration between technical data and non-climatic factors like social vulnerability, regulatory frameworks or sectoral dynamics. This hampers the credibility and relevance of services. As a result, we see missed opportunities to embed climate information effectively in policy, planning and risk management decisions.

We’re working to improve the relevance and quality of climate services by gathering evidence from across our consortium and the wider climate services community. Our role is to analyse this information and provide recommendations that support the ongoing standardisation process, which is led by the European Committee for Standardisation (CEN). 

We’ve developed a framework that evaluates climate services based on four interconnected components: the decision context, the actors and co-production processes, different knowledge systems and the delivery mode. This holistic approach allows us to identify gaps, highlight best practices and propose key criteria for fit-for-purpose services. 

We’re also producing flexible best practice guidance to complement formal standardisation efforts. These guidance materials are designed to be responsive to user diversity and to improve readiness for the eventual adoption of more formal standards. 

Trust and legitimacy in climate services are built through inclusive processes, transparency and responsiveness to user needs. 

We contribute to this by harvesting insights from the climate services community to identify where services fall short and where improvements are most needed. We then provide evidence-based recommendations to inform standardisation and governance processes led by formal bodies like CEN. 

Improving salience requires grounding services in real-world decision-making contexts and ensuring they are co-designed with users. Credibility is enhanced by clearly communicating uncertainty, using robust and traceable data, and integrating technical with non-technical knowledge. Legitimacy comes from involving users throughout the process, recognising different perspectives and addressing ethical concerns. 

Our work supports all these goals by surfacing examples, methods and performance indicators that can inform both best practices and the formal development of future standards.

The current landscape of climate services is not equitable because it often favours those with greater technical capacity, institutional power or resources. Smaller organisations, local governments and vulnerable communities may lack access to services that are fit for their needs, or may be excluded from co-production processes. 

We’re addressing this by collecting evidence from a wide array of users and providers across Europe and highlighting where gaps exist. Our goal is to make recommendations that help shape a more inclusive and fair climate services ecosystem. This includes promoting equitable access, supporting co-design processes and identifying the enabling conditions that allow all actors–regardless of size or capacity–to benefit from climate services. 

By surfacing these issues, we aim to inform the development of climate services guidance and standards that serve the whole community, not just a select few.

Incorporating perspectives from the social sciences and humanities (SSH) is essential because climate services don’t exist in a vacuum—they operate within complex social, political and institutional environments. 

We bring together SSH expertise to identify how these dimensions can be better integrated into climate service design and evaluation. We gather knowledge on the ethical implications of AI, the legitimacy of different knowledge systems and how power dynamics influence access to services. 

By making recommendations that embed SSH perspectives, we aim to support the development of services that are not only technically sound but also trusted, inclusive and effective in practice. This adds depth to the standardisation conversation and ensures that future services are fit for society as well as science.

We’re achieving this by working collaboratively across disciplines and engaging with the climate services community to gather insights, experiences and lessons learned. Our role is to synthesise this information and offer it in the form of recommendations to those developing future standards—primarily CEN and other standardisation bodies. Our framework supports this by assessing climate services along multiple dimensions, including procedural and performance aspects that reflect social, ethical and contextual concerns. 

We also host engagement activities, compile case studies and produce best practice guidance that demonstrates how SSH perspectives can improve service design and delivery. By working in this way, we contribute to a more holistic understanding of what makes climate services effective and equitable, while supporting the ecosystem with actionable insights for standardisation and governance.

We support more informed user choices by contributing evidence and insights to the standardisation process—clarifying what “fit-for-purpose” climate services should look like and identifying the characteristics that enhance usability, trust, and impact.

Drawing on a diverse range of research and engagement activities across Europe, we analyse how services are used, where they succeed, and where they fall short. This evidence base informs best practice guidance and recommendations for future standards that can help users—from policymakers to private sector actors—evaluate and compare services more effectively.

While we don’t provide services or engage directly with individual users, our work ensures that the needs and perspectives of a broad range of users are embedded in the frameworks shaping the future climate services landscape.

We’re focused on collecting and synthesising strategies that already exist across the climate services landscape, identifying what works and providing recommendations to enhance uptake. This includes highlighting co-production processes, successful sectoral partnerships and governance models that support integration into policy and business decision-making. 

Through our community engagement and case studies, we examine how enabling conditions—such as organisational capacity, literacy and incentives—affect uptake. We then share these findings with formal bodies and stakeholders who shape standards and guidance.

By surfacing both barriers and enablers, we aim to help create an environment where climate services can be more seamlessly incorporated into planning and investment processes. Our role is not to mandate uptake but to inform those working on the enabling frameworks and to encourage dialogue between users and providers across sectors.

End-users need to recognise that not all climate services are created equal. The most effective services are those designed with a clear understanding of the user’s decision context, sectoral needs and institutional capacities. 

We’re working to identify and promote best practices that help users evaluate services based on criteria such as accessibility, traceability, uncertainty communication and co-production. While we don’t create the services themselves, we provide guidance on what to look for and what questions to ask. For example: Does the service address your specific risk? Can you understand the assumptions and limitations? Is the information up to date and usable within your existing systems? 

We also highlight the importance of feedback mechanisms, capacity-building support and tailored delivery modes. By improving awareness and interpretability, we help users become more confident and capable in selecting and applying climate services that match their needs.

In this future, services are not only scientifically rigorous but also socially legitimate, accessible and tailored to the diverse needs of users. Climate services would routinely support decisions in urban planning, finance, infrastructure, health and more. 

To get there, we believe in the value of standardisation—but only if it reflects the full complexity of what makes a service usable and fair. Our role is to gather and analyse the knowledge, practices and insights needed to support the development of such standards. We want to see a stronger link between users and providers, underpinned by guidance that supports transparency, co-production and ethical practice. 

Ultimately, we aim to help build a climate services ecosystem that supports resilience, justice and sustainability across Europe.

Disclaimer
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