A climate centre to bundle all UT research and education that focuses on climate change, with that ambition emeritus professor Albert van den Berg announced the arrival of the Climate Centre at the beginning of 2023. Because he had no doubt that great things were happening at the UT. But he lacked cohesion and mainly saw islands. Has that improved a year and a half later? Cheryl de Boer thinks so. 'Absolutely, but I'm still amazed at how much we at UT are concerned with climate, every week I get to know something new.'
Fragmentation
According to De Boer, the large number of scientists, teachers and students who are doing 'something' around climate is also the biggest challenge. 'It's not easy to make a whole out of it. Many UT scientists are strongly focused on their own expertise, which they sometimes spend years researching. Bringing together this fragmentation from multiple disciplines is complicated, but important. We want to show what we've got.' According to De Boer, the GeoTechnoSocial approach makes the Climate Centre a good partner for working on climate solutions.
The Centre does this by first increasing visibility, says De Boer 'Learning to understand each other's work better is only possible if you know about each other's work.' This will be followed by support for UT staff who want to work together. 'By defining different challenges, around energy, weather extremes, planetary health and negative emissions. With guidance, we try to think across disciplines and thus navigate through challenges.'
Water authority
The importance of strong climate research for the university and the world is obvious, but De Boer also points to the financial crisis that the UT is experiencing. 'Many of the grants awarded have a link to climate. That is an important source of income that can still be used, which can only become more important.' That is why De Boer and her team want to make it even clearer what they do and why in the future. 'We are already being approached by external parties. Waterschap Vechtstromen (the regional water authority, ed.), for example, is facing enormous challenges. We are working on a collaboration agreement with them and I hope for more such collaborations.'
De Boer indicates that the UT's cutbacks will affect the new centre, but that the pain is manageable for the time being. After all, there is no staff employed by the center. 'And fortunately, the Executive Board is willing to invest in us, but we do miss the commitment of students, especially during the Climate Event.'
A fair observation, because visitors to the event await a packed program next week. Parallel sessions are scheduled both in the morning and in the afternoon and Derk Loorbach and Valérie Trouet will give a keynote. There is room for 250 interested people and De Boer is counting on a full house. Find more information about the event here.
