AGORA: Pilot Case Study in Rome, Italy

The AGORA Project

The AGORA project promotes societal transformation to empower local communities to address the climate crisis. AGORA aims to achieve this goal through a multidisciplinary, integrated approach and four pilot studies all around Europe.

AGORA is a HORIZON Europe project started in January 2023. It supports the EU Mission on Adaptation to Climate Change.

Introduction

The Italian pilot case study focuses on the city of Rome, the national capital and the largest city in Italy. In relation to the climate change impacts, AGORA aims to support the definition of the Climate Change Adaptation Strategy, currently in progress. Among the various climate risks, the Italian pilot consider nine specific sectors (urban settlements, health, network and infrastructures, biodiversity and ecosystem, among others) identified as among the most vulnerable and therefore at risk, within the key areas identified during the preparation of the Climate Change Adaptation Strategy. This is to integrate the climate impacts, related vulnerabilities, and risks to the possible adaptation options, not only considering the perspective of decision-makers (top-down approach) from the initial phase of defining vulnerabilities and risks.

Activities so far

The AGORA project officially kicked off also in Italy, with an inception workshop organised by CMCC, the project coordinator, on November 9th 2023, in Rome.  

The Italian pilot case of the project relates to the eternal city, where AGORA aims to support the definition of Rome’s Climate Change Adaptation Strategy, current under development. 

The event was held at the “Casa delle Tecnologie Emergenti”, a living lab for innovation inside the Tiburtina Station. This institution is one of the key initiatives that the Municipality of Rome has  launched to test and design solutions to transform Rome into a smart city.  

The objective of the workshop was to define the main socio-economic, structural and environmental vulnerabilities as well as the main needs and criticalities related to the local adaptive capacity. These were identified for each of the nine areas, together with the elements that would be key factors in involving citizens and to achieve a successful adaptation strategy. 

To read more about the inception workshop please see here: Kicking off the first AGORA pilot study in Rome, Italy – AGORA (adaptationagora.eu)

Figure 1. Inception workshop in Rome, Italy. (Credit: AGORA project)

Next steps

The inception workshop which kicked-off the Italian pilot study was a good opportunity for many stakeholders to get together and discuss topics of common interest from different perspectives, exchanging views and tools to support the local climate adaptation process. This created an additional value for the Pilot in general and this workshop in particular, as it allowed a networking effect between stakeholders that did not have a platform to connect with one another prior to attending this session. This collaborative and interdisciplinary approach set the basis of the AGORA pilot case in Rome and will foster its future developments.