This project “Storytelling for Resilience – Communicating Systemic Approaches to Climate Change” brings together climate change adaptation specialists from across a spectrum of natural and social sciences. It addresses two central challenges for increasing our resilience to extreme events: (1) to make complex research results more accessible and tractable for decision-makers, and (2) to acknowledge that decision-makers include the general public as they self-organise and respond to new local challenges, in parallel to higher-level policy and practice. To address both of these challenges the applicants propose a novel approach: storytelling for climate change adaptation.

State-of-the-art storytelling training will bring a set of fresh communication and engagement skills to climate change researchers and practitioners in Scotland. It is anticipated that the acquired skills will be applied not only by the programme team, but also by the wider community of climate change professionals in their current and future knowledge exchange activities. Following training, the proposed programme will also demonstrate the effectiveness of storytelling in bringing about real-world impact, through application to a specific, existing research case study with a flood-prone community. Complementary illustrations will be developed to disseminate information (through stories) to a wider audience, including higher-level policy-makers and the general public.

Image courtesy of Morien Jones