Updated Tandem Cycle - Transdisciplinary knowledge co-production processes and information interoperability
Year: 2026
Type: report
Abstract: “....it’s the mindset in particular that will make a big difference - that is, what people believe about the future, their moral perspectives, and how they view things. And how to apply this in your role. I believe that will be the key - addressing this mindset and not always relying on numbers, data, and facts if we want to make a difference. Instead, we need to actually be more responsive to - let’s say - people’s emotions.” - Department Head for Structural Change and Sustainability for the district of Bergheim, Germany These reflections capture the central objective of DIRECTED's capacity development approach: to move beyond training of trainers (ToT) towards a ‘learning by doing’ approach enabling lasting changes in how stakeholders collaborate, make decisions and implement climate change adaptation (CCA) and disaster risk reduction (DRR) solutions. The Tandem capacity development process applied in DIRECTED strengthened participants’ ability to unpack shared challenges, understand their underlying drivers, and co-design interventions, solutions and tools, while creating the enabling conditions for their uptake and sustained use. This strengthened the co-development, interpretation and application of state-of-the-art climate risk information and decision- support approaches, supporting the uptake of DIRECTED methods and tools and helping to bridge fragmentation between the DRR and CCA communities. At a more granular level, results from the Capacity Needs Assessment, repeated during the project, confirmed that the Tandem process increased capacities among RWL hosts and stakeholders in interpreting data and models, understanding uncertainty, considering interconnected and compound risks, and integrating these perspectives into CCA and DRM strategy development. Across the four Real World Labs and many engagements with hundreds of stakeholders (Annex 1), the Tandem process helped translate four co-production principles: context-based; pluralistic; goal-oriented; and, interactive, into practice through sevenrecurring enablers: alignment with local priorities; responsive planning; tailored interventions; inclusive participation; making assumptions explicit; surfacing shared goals; and continuous learning and reflection. These processes generated outcomes beyond individual project outputs: stronger networks, improved systems thinking, greater confidence in collaborative working, changes in organisational practice, and in some cases institutionalisation and scaling of new ways of working. Through this process a diversity of innovations integrating climate and disaster risk considerations into governance, data and communication processes emerged. In Roskilde Fjord, this meant stronger cross-municipal collaboration despite governance changes; improved understanding of cascading risks and emergency coordination; and stronger relationships between municipalities, utilities and emergency actors resulting in interoperable flood maps, damage estimates and vulnerability information supporting cross-municipal comparison of adaptation options. In Emilia-Romagna the Data Fabric was tailored to Civil Protection needs; there was improved integration of public and private flood data; practical wildfire and flood applications; English-language wildfire communication; and potential institutionalisation through Civil Protection operations and training. In Zala, increased advocacy and awareness; growing facilitation capacity; and successful use of an existing youth arts festival built climate engagement and local ownership. And in the Rhine-Erft there was a shift from a technology-led solution to practical governance and communication improvements; mapped warning chains and responsibilities; a Forecast2Foresight tabletop exercise; creation and institutionalisation of a DRR consultation meeting; and, uptake of similar coordination arrangements by neighbouring authorities. This deliverable (D4.3) documents the evolution of the transdisciplinary co-production process, the Tandem capacity development guidance and online modules (www.weadapt.org/tandem and Annex 2 and 3), that supported these innovations. Further, it documents how lessons generated across the Real World Labs (RWLs) have been translated into an evidence-based methodology for the use of this co-production approach more widely. This is achieved by providing clear end-to-end traceability from RWL capacity development experiences to the final guidance and technical updates, demonstrating how stakeholder needs and perceptions concretely informed model and data choices, interoperability requirements, and Data Fabric design decisions. This illustrates how learning outcomes are translated into observable changes in co-production practices, institutional collaboration and the application of DIRECTED methods. Together, these developments establish Tandem as a practical methodology that supports organisational learning, strengthens cross-sector collaboration and enables the sustained adoption of DIRECTED tools and approaches within and beyond the project. “I think you get a better picture of things after a day like today. It’s about bringing your plans to the table. Plans that, to a not insignificant degree, are based on one’s own perspective. And every agency or department has done that, and now we’re laying them out on the table and seeing how they align with each other or overlap. And that - as always - is an important perspective in the learning that’s taken place today, as we’ve been doing in these planning workshops." - Roskilde Fire Chief, Denmark. Building on insights traced across the project through RWL reflections, workshops, capacity development activities, facilitator reflections, bilateral support, peer-to-peer learning and qualitative analysis of RWL reports and project deliverables, the Tandem guidance underwent a systematic refinement to improve its accessibility, usability and methodological rigour. A key enhancement of the guidance is its stronger emphasis on managing multiple, interacting risks through systems thinking and participatory decision-making. New exercises support participants in linking risk management actions with broader sustainability transitions. The revised guidance closes an important gap by fully integrating DRR alongside CCA, while embedding a stronger multi-level systems perspective through questions and facilitation exercises informed by the Transition Design approach. "It will permanently shift our approach to tool development and risk communication. Instead of simply pushing raw technical data to municipalities, we will apply design principles to ensure that all future platforms and public alerts are intuitive, accessible, and tailored to the end-user's actual operational capabilities." - Real World Lab host The Tandem online guidance modules have been redesigned into discrete, modular components that enable practitioners to navigate the guidance according to different stages of the co-production process and the different RWL timelines. The many available resources (Annex 2 and 3) support facilitators in designing, delivering and evaluating co-production processes, enabling wider uptake and replication beyond the project. These have been achieved through a range of activities spanning from the curation of an interactive glossary of terms (Climate Connectivity Taxonomy) to arts-based approaches to stakeholder engagement. Capacity development is therefore positioned as an integral part of implementing DIRECTED decision-support approaches, rather than as a stand-alone training activity. This report presents the methodological refinements to Tandem, thedevelopment of new online learning modules and facilitation resources, and the evidence underpinning and driving these changes. Finally, the methodology has also been been enriched through collaboration with related European initiatives and Horizon Europe projects, including CLIMAAX, Pathways2Resilience (P2R), MYRIAD, AdaptationHubs, GreenAdapt2Extremes (Water4All Partnership) and the CERIS (Community for European Research and Innovation for Security) Disaster Resilience Days, demonstrating the transferability and continued evolution of the Tandem co-production methodology beyond DIRECTED.
Authors: Ng, Natascha, Parviainen, Janne, Williamson, Kate, Bharwani, Sukaina, Cumiskey, Lydia, Faulkner, Holly Alexandra, Schweizer, Pia-Johanna, Mazzoli, Paolo, Steinhausen, Max Jacob, Irvine, Tracy, Pancioli, Valeria, Hedderich, Dominik, Drews, Martin, Pedersen, Jacob, Bagli, Stefano, Renzi, Francesca, Luzzi, Valerio, Renzi, Marco, Nanni, Sandro, Hochrainer-Stigler, Stefan, Löhrlein, Jana, Huszti, Levente, Apel, Heiko, Hanf, Franziska Stefanie, Gräler, Benedikt, Kraatz, Julia, Kropf, Chahan, Struck, Julian, Hofbauer, Ben
Institutions: Stockholm Environment Institute, University College Cork, Research Institute for Sustainability at GFZ, GFZ Helmholtz Centre for Geosciences, Technische Universität Braunschweig, Ocean Acoustical Services and Instrumentation Systems (United States), Technical University of Denmark, Capital Region of Denmark, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, 52°North Spatial Information Research, ETH Zurich
Language: English
Subfield: Global and Planetary Change
Field: Environmental Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7225815517
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