🌱 Publication entitled “Navigating Opportunity Spaces: A Practitioner’s Guide to Linking Climate Adaptation and Local Transformative Innovation Policy” is a document published by The Joint Research Centre (JRC), the scientific research service of the European Commission, aims to provide practitioners with guidance on how transformative innovation policy and climate adaptation can unlock new opportunities together. The document was published in 2025 and provides evidence-based support for the European policy-making process.

The guide focuses on the idea that climate resilience does not have to be seen as a cost, but can become an investment that supports innovation, growth and job creation. Although the potential for linking innovation and climate adaptation exists, this approach is still rare in European regions, due to limited awareness and practical barriers. The main aim of the guide is to help practitioners raise awareness of often overlooked opportunities at the intersection of innovation policy and climate adaptation.

The guide is intended for professionals working at national, regional or local level who support the implementation of innovation and climate adaptation strategies. Such users should have competences in systems thinking, the ability to work across policy domains and levels of governance, basic skills in facilitation, communication and coordination of stakeholders, as well as the ability to identify synergies and design solutions that align innovation and climate priorities.

The potential for innovation in climate adaptation and the need for awareness raising

Transformative innovation is expected to increase competitiveness while creating a better life for EU citizens. Future-oriented innovation strategies that support societal well-being must include climate adaptation and mitigation as a key element. At the same time, transformative innovation offers potential scope for developing adaptive solutions to address climate risks, which can lead to first-mover advantages and new markets for innovative climate resilience solutions. From a business perspective, addressing climate adaptation is a logical choice for risk mitigation, as each business is likely to be affected by climate change to different degrees. Therefore, addressing climate adaptation is a key opportunity for policymakers at all levels.

Although the opportunities seem logical and clear, practice remains limited. Reasons may include lack of understanding, lack of accountability, fragmented governance, and others. Awareness-raising is essential to foster dialogue towards a comprehensive understanding of climate risks and impacts among decision-makers across different sectors and departments. Highlighting the potential future costs of inaction and promoting ownership of climate adaptation strategies will ensure that all relevant policies contribute to a unified effort.

What are “Opportunity Spaces”?

The guide introduces a practically oriented framework for understanding dynamic interaction between transformative innovation policy and climate adaptation, which helps practitioners develop the thinking needed to recognize and exploit the spaces of opportunity in their territories. Territories should not be seen as the only entity capable of acting, competing or learning, but as groupings of collective actors. Transformative innovation policy enables new activities when the capabilities of individual actors overlap and interlink, or when different policy areas and economic sectors are connected through networks of territorial specialization. The implementation of a portfolio of innovation programs and projects enables synergies between multiple interventions across system levels.

There are many opportunities to leverage Smart Specialisation (S3) strategies for climate change action. S3 can be a tool to address climate adaptation challenges through research and innovation in combination with a broader set of policies and strategies. The adaptive logic of the policy implementation process, where priorities are addressed through a combination of instruments, resources and capacities, is emerging as an enabling space for opportunities.

Guide structure and key approaches

The guide provides a comprehensive approach to understanding, identifying and activating opportunity spaces for climate-adaptive innovation in EU territories. It is divided into three main parts that work together but are also accessible independently:

1. Part 1: Understanding Opportunity Spaces
   • It presents a framework for understanding the connection between transformative innovation policy and climate adaptation.
   • It helps develop thinking to recognize opportunities.
   • It explores synergies, the portfolio approach, and the role of multidimensional management.
2. Part 2: The Opportunity Space Mapping Tool
   • It represents a practical visual tool for systematically navigating the system and analyzing opportunity spaces.
   • The tool offers a structured process based on action learning and systems thinking.
   • It uses guided exercises and workshops (Co-creation).
   • Co-creation Workshops:
     • Your Opportunity Space
       • Step 0: Preparation (Tool setup, group design).
       • Step 1: Your challenge and impact goals (Defining the system scope and goals).
       • Step 2: System mapping (Mapping relationships between actors, activities and resource flows).
       • Step 3: Gap and Risk Analysis (Identification of systemic weaknesses and future challenges from a portfolio perspective). Risk cards and question sets are used for gap analysis.
     • From Analysis to Action
       • Step 4: Stress testing (Examining how the portfolio is systemic and transformational). Transformational scorecards and megatrends are used.
       • Step 5: Designing interventions (Designing specific steps to address challenges and seize opportunities). Policy opportunity cards and blank intervention cards are used.
       • Step 6: Consolidation (Combining findings from different working groups and creating a coherent strategy). Bingo or Matrix/Orbit format is used. A Pledge Wall may also be included to record individual pledges.
   • The tool is flexible and modular, adaptable to different goals and contexts.
   • It is recommended to use the World Café technique to cross-fertilize ideas between groups.
3. Part 3: Learning through Experiences
   • It presents a collection of real-world examples of how different territories navigate their opportunity spaces.
   • The examples are structured according to WHAT, HOW, WHY and SO WHAT.
   • They cover different levels of maturity, orientation, focus areas (horizontal and multi-level governance, policy mix, M&E, skills and training) and territorial levels (national, regional, city/municipal).

Three approaches to navigating opportunity spaces through transformative innovation:

To effectively respond to climate-related challenges, innovation policy must go beyond supporting individual projects and help shape systems. The handbook presents three pillars of working with opportunity spaces:

1. Implementation as shaping spaces of opportunity: The implementation of policies, strategies and action plans involving public and private actors has an adaptive logic. It is important to see climate adaptation as a cross-cutting issue, to raise awareness and ownership of decision-makers and to define objectives within a collaborative effort. Mobilising EU financial mechanisms and access to technical expertise are also key.
2. Portfolio approach as an enabling mechanism: Systemic political portfolios rely on synergies between different actors with different capacities. The key to effective implementation is to actively engage in changing the capacities of actors by strengthening linkages and building capacity across levels of governance. This approach supports knowledge coordination and cross-fertilization across disciplines, sectors and regions. It also requires tailored financing and resource allocation for different types of initiatives.
3. Multidimensional innovation management for climate resilience: This means systems thinking and the ability to work across policy domains and levels of governance. Critical issues include stakeholder identification, creating mutual awareness, coordinating across levels, and sharing knowledge. Useful practices include mapping climate risks in relation to S3, creating inter-ministerial working groups, establishing coordination platforms, and regional support mechanisms for municipalities.

Conversation and dialogue

In the context of climate adaptation and innovation, purposeful discussions between different stakeholders (government officials, entrepreneurs, researchers, community members) are key to navigating complexity and discovering opportunities. Conversations help:

• Identify common opportunities at the intersection of innovation policy and climate adaptation.
• Combine individual goals with collective visions through a portfolio approach.
• Learn from the knowledge and professional experience of others.
• Connect local needs with broader solutions.
• Challenge our understanding of evolving opportunities and local capacities to increase adaptability.

Conversations can proceed in three steps:

1. Contextualization: Transferring knowledge from various sources to make it relevant to a specific location.
2. Anchoring: Linking knowledge to local priorities and active processes, for example through system mapping.
3. Consolidation: Connecting different topics and actors to create a common understanding and identify opportunities for collaboration. This process is iterative and helps build capacity to address local challenges through innovation.

Practical examples

Part 3 of the guide presents examples of how different territories apply these concepts. They include:

• Slovenia, which links climate resilience with S3 priorities.
• Interterritorial cooperation on climate resilience in the cities of Turku and Espoo in Finland.
• Aligning and experimenting in climate resilience through the Entrepreneurial Discovery Process (EDP) in the Basque Country, Spain.
• Alignment of S3 strategic priorities and climate action in the Masovian Voivodeship, Poland.
• Project NEPTUN – a platform for cross-border cooperation in the field of innovative solutions for water and climate adaptation between Denmark and Germany.
• Raising awareness and climate action in Schiedam and Stadsregio Rotterdam, the Netherlands.
• The Mértola Resilient Path in Portugal – a local portfolio approach to climate adaptation.
• Green Minds Initiative – transforming the city of Plymouth in the UK for climate resilience.
• Project NEVERMORE – empowering municipalities in the Murcia region, Spain, for climate action.
• MarPAMM – transboundary cooperation for climate adaptation in marine protected areas (MPAs).
• European Universities Initiative – supporting education, research and innovation in the field of climate adaptation.

These examples demonstrate the diversity of approaches, actors, activities and impacts achieved in navigating opportunity spaces. They highlight the importance cross-sectoral and multi-level cooperation, integrated political mixes, monitoring and evaluation a skills development and capacity building.

What next?

The guide ends, but the journey is just beginning – it is about a continuous process of learning and experimentationPractitioners can build on five principles of co-creation to refine their approach: clarity of scope, focus on outcomes, inclusiveness, high-quality tailored processes, and a systems perspective.

Experimentation with different applications of the toolkit and iterating the exploration of the opportunity space over time to deepen and update understanding of the potential for collaboration is encouraged. The results of using the guide can be used to benchmark policies with other territories, for example using the Climate Peer Review Tool.

Finally, it is an invitation to join a wider community of practitioners working at the intersection of innovation policy and climate adaptation. Sharing experiences and engaging in cross-regional dialogue in communities of practice such as Pathways2Resilence, the Transformative Innovation Policy Consortium or the Industry 5.0 Community of Practice can broaden horizons and contribute to shared knowledge. Together, we can build more resilient, innovative and sustainable regions.

The “Navigating Opportunity Spaces” guide thus provides a valuable source of information and tools for practitioners seeking to transform climate challenges into engines of territorial prosperity through innovation. Spring

Glossary of key terms

• Climate Change Adaptation (CCA): Adaptation to current or expected future climate change and its effects.
• Entrepreneurial Discovery Process (EDP): A process in which businesses, academia, government and civil society collaboratively identify new opportunities and innovation potential.
• Horizontal Governance: Coordination and cooperation between different sectors or entities at the same level of government.
• Megatrends: Large-scale, long-term transformative forces that are changing the global environment.
• Multilevel Governance: Coordination and interaction between different levels of government (e.g. local, regional, national, European).
• Nature-based Solutions: Actions to protect, sustainably manage and restore natural or modified ecosystems that address societal challenges effectively and adaptively while providing human well-being and biodiversity benefits.
• Opportunity Space: A set of circumstances, resources and conditions at a given time that can be harnessed to achieve change, for example in climate-related innovations.
• Place-based Conditions: The unique conditions and context of a particular territory that shape the challenges and opportunities for innovation and adaptation.
• Policy Portfolio: A combination of different policy instruments and interventions designed to achieve specific objectives.
• Smart Specialization Strategy (S3): A regional innovation strategy aimed at concentrating resources on a limited number of key priority areas based on the strength of knowledge and capacities.
• Stress Testing: A method for assessing the resilience of a strategy or portfolio to potential future shocks or megatrends.
• Sustainable Energy and Climate Action Plan (SECAP): Strategic plan of municipalities for achieving climate and energy goals.
• Systemic Challenges: Complex and interconnected problems that require a coordinated approach involving multiple actors and sectors.
• Territorial occasional spaces: Occasional spaces that manifest within a specific territory, influenced by local conditions, actors, and existing systems.
• Transformative innovation: Innovation that leads to fundamental, systemic changes in mindsets, structures, and practices to address societal challenges.
• Transformative Outcomes: The results of policies and activities that contribute to systemic change, such as strengthening learning, networks and expectations.
• Urban Rewilding: The process of restoring natural processes in an urban environment.