Research-practice collaboration to tackle immediate and future urban water challenges
A new collaboration between the Queen Mary Center, Professor of Political Science Michele Betsill, and C40 will investigate the transformative potential of high ambition city commitments within urban water management and resilience building.
Water scarcity and flooding are problems that affect countries around the world, and urban areas are especially at risk. 90% of global disasters are accounted for by water-related climate hazards. These negative impacts will only be exacerbated further by the continuous unfolding of the climate crisis. In 2023, 17 major cities committed to some of the most ambitious commitments to address flooding and drought and to improve urban resilience to water-related risks, by joining the C40 Water Safe Cities Accelerator.
The new project – The Transformative Impact of High Ambition City Commitments - focuses on five of the most climate ambitious cities where in-depth case studies will investigate how each city´s political commitments for resilience building and water management are put into action. The main objectives of the project are to support the cities in reaching the goals of the commitments as well as generate new knowledge by documenting the character and extent of the catalytic effects and the transformative potential of the C40 accelerator model.
Together, the Queen Mary Center, Michele Betsill, and C40 bring a unique combination of academic rigor, practical expertise, and global reach to the project.
This collaboration is ideally suited to deliver a project that not only addresses immediate urban water challenges but also sets the stage for transformative, long-term impact on urban resilience and sustainability. Thereby, the project also aims to inspire cities everywhere to raise ambitions for water management and resilience building by strengthening the evidence base for the transformative impacts of high ambition city commitments supported by a network.
The project is supported by the Grundfos Foundation and is set to start in March 2025.
“The Foundation has supported C40 Cities’ water accelerator programme with considerable funding. By adding independent follow-up research, we hope to ensure a critical view on the effect of our philanthropic investments through the network model in the signatory cities.” Kim Nøhr Skibsted, Executive Director, Grundfos Foundation.
"C40 is excited to support this project with the University of Copenhagen by sharing our experience with C40 Accelerators supporting cities to demonstrate leadership and accelerate delivery of the most impactful climate actions. The C40 Water Safe Cities Accelerator, launched in 2023 with support from Grundfos Foundation, provides a framework of action commitments and a path to achieve them. We hope the project gives us insight into the Accelerators as a mechanism to drive change that will not only benefit Water Accelerator cities, but also the 100+ C40 cities committed to high impact climate actions globally." Sachin Bhoite, Director of Climate Resilience, C40 Cities.
“This is an exciting opportunity to work in partnership with C40 and the Grundfos Foundation. By studying the catalytic effects of high ambition commitments in cities, we hope to generate new and applicable insights that can facilitate equitable climate action in both the case study cities and beyond.” Michele Merrill Betsill, Professor at Department of Political Science, University of Copenhagen