Climate Research Partnership · Glasgow · 2026 – 2027
Building Resilience, Building Communities
Empowering Vulnerable Communities for Climate Action
A community-led climate research programme bringing together Together Reaching Higher and the University of Strathclyde to capture the lived experience of climate change across Glasgow’s most affected communities and turn that experience into evidence, action, and policy change.
We train local Climate Champions to lead structured conversations with their neighbours. They listen. They map. They share. Lived experience becomes rigorous evidence. Evidence becomes adaptation solutions.
Funded by the MACC Hub Flexible Fund at King’s College London, supported by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) – part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI).
Climate Champions
"community-led. evidence-driven. Trusted voices for change.
We train local residents as Climate Champions trusted voices who lead real conversations with their community about how climate change is shaping their daily lives. Every story matters. Every voice counts.
Community-led
Champions are your neighbours people who understand the area because they live in it.
Conversation-first
Real dialogue, not surveys. We listen before we act.
Solutions that stick
Co-created by the community, grounded in lived experience and backed by academic expertise.
The Challenge
Climate change is already reshaping daily life in Glasgow.
Climate change is no longer a future risk. Rising temperatures, heavier rainfall, flooding, poor housing conditions, and increasing energy costs are already affecting communities across Glasgow particularly those facing poverty and inequality. Yet these communities are often least represented in decisions about climate adaptation
🌡️+0.7°C
Warmer Climate
Scotland is already warmer than the 1961–1990 average
Met Office, State of the UK Climate (2023)
🌧️+9%
More rainfall
Increase in Scottish rainfall since the 1960s.
Met Office (2023)
🏠1 in 4
Fuel Poverty
Glasgow households were in fuel poverty the highest rates in the most deprived areas.
Understanding Glasgow, 2017–19
📢 72%
Public Concern
Scottish adults see climate change as an immediate and urgent problem.
Scottish Climate Survey 2024
💚45%
Youth Impact
Young people in the UK say climate change affects their daily life and functioning.
Lancet Planetary Health (2021)
Why This Research Matters
Climate change does not affect everyone equally
Communities that contribute least to climate change often experience its impacts most severely and have the smallest voice in shaping solutions. Through a partnership between Together Reaching Higher and the University of Strathclyde, supported by the MACC Hub, this programme ensures that lived experience informs climate adaptation and strengthens community voice, resilience, and wellbeing.
ABOUT THE RESEARCH
Empowering Vulnerable Communities for Climate Action
Climate Resilience Champions is a collaborative research project initiated by Together Reaching Higher (TRH) and co-designed with the University of Strathclyde Business School. The project is funded through the MACC Hub Flexible Fund at King’s College London part of the UK’s national climate adaptation research programme, supported by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI).
The research addresses a critical gap in UK adaptation evidence: how climate change affects the daily lives, homes, health and wellbeing of the communities most vulnerable to it and what solutions work when those communities design them themselves.
Trained local Champions from Glasgow’s multilingual communities turn lived experience into research evidence through Co-production, structured conversations and participatory mappingand story collection. The programme ensures that local voices, experiences, and priorities help shape climate adaptation actions and contribute to building stronger, more resilient communities.
By the end of this research, Glasgow’s most affected communities will not only be heard in the UK’s adaptation evidence they will have helped write it.
“Every story is evidence. Every voice counts.”
Research design, ethics & safeguarding
The methodology was co-developed by TRH and Strathclyde Business School a mixed-methods, community-led design combining TRH’s community-embedded research expertise and translocal climate knowledge with the University’s academic oversight. All fieldwork follows informed-consent procedures, GDPR-compliant data handling with anonymisation, and a safeguarding framework with a named TRH safeguarding lead.
Research Design
Community leadership meets academic rigour.
The Climate Resilience Champions programme is a participatory action research project grounded in lived experience co-designed and delivered by Together Reaching Higher and the University of Strathclyde, with support from the MACC Hub at King’s College London.
🎓 Train 📊 Evidence 🌱 Solutions
Through ethical practice, continuous learning, and rigorous evaluation, this programme offers a scalable blueprint for community-led climate adaptation designed to be adapted by other places facing similar challenges.
How It Works
Become a Champion
Join our training programme and lead climate conversations in your community. No experience needed just a willingness to listen and act.
Host an event or partner with us
Whether you’re a community group, faith centre, school, or local organisation, our Champions can deliver interactive community conversations that raise awareness, generate evidence, and support communities to co-create solutions for a more resilient future.
Stay informed
Follow our progress and hear about upcoming events. We’ll keep you updated as Champions begin their community conversations.
Two phases. One mission.
What Climate Resilience Champions Learn
A structured pathway from community training to a national evidence base with public targets we report against to leading change in your community.
Phase 1
*— Our Climate, Our Wellbeing
Climate change, climate justice, and how it affects our health, homes, and wellbeing. Risk & asset mapping in practice.
* — Champion Leadership Skills & Wellbeing
Active listening, leading good conversations, safeguarding basics, and practising the 10 community conversation.
* — Evidence, Stories & Action
Turning what we hear into evidence, writing your action plan, and celebrating becoming a Climate Champion.
* — Growing Climate Confidence
IInteractive game-based activities: Play Your Cards Right, Spot the Difference Climate Ready Places, and climatACTical.
*— Our Climate, Our Wellbeing
Climate change, climate justice, and how it affects our health, homes, and wellbeing. Risk & asset mapping in practice.
* — Champion Leadership Skills & Wellbeing
Active listening, leading good conversations, safeguarding basics, and practising the 10 community conversation.
* — Evidence, Stories & Action
Turning what we hear into evidence, writing your action plan, and celebrating becoming a Climate Champion.
* — Growing Climate Confidence
IInteractive game-based activities: Play Your Cards Right, Spot the Difference Climate Ready Places, and climatACTical.
Community Conversations
Each Champion reaches neighbours / Communtes one-to-one, in groups, or at events using a structured 10-question conversation guide covering daily life, climate impacts, home conditions, wellbeing, and local support.
Risk & Asset Mapping
Champions map local climate risks (heat, flooding, damp) and community assets (parks, centres, places of worship) building a community climate risk profile as evidence for decision-makers.
From Stories to Solutions
Community voices become evidence fed into a final report to funders, a policy brief, and a community toolkit. Findings may be shared at the MACC Belfast Conference in September 2026.
Programme in Action
See Climate Champions in Action
Five hands-on workshops in June 2026 climate science, climate justice, listening and leadership, mapping, and game-based learning with SCVO. Real people, real learning, real community action.
Champions in training.
Climate Basics & Climate Justice
Leadership Skills & Wellbeing
Evidence, Stories & Action
Growing Climate Confidance
Funders & Partners
A partnership built on trust.
Climate Resilience Champions is a collaborative research programme between Together Reaching Higher and the University of Strathclyde, funded through the Flexible Fund of the MACC Hub, led by King’s College London and funded by UKRI & Defra.
Project Co-Lead
A Glasgow-based non-profit and Scottish Charity Award 2025 winner for Climate Impact.
TRH-initiated collaboration, and as Community Research Co-Lead. TRH leads Climate Champion training and community engagement bringing the trust, lived relationships, and reach that sit at the heart of this project.
Academic Lead
The Business School brings rigorous expertise in research academic oversight, co-designing & analysis.
Funder & Programme Lead
The Maximising UK Adaptation to Climate Change (MACC) Hub, based at King's College London, funds this project through its Flexible Fund under the Transformational Adaptation Solutions call. The MACC Hub also connects our findings to UK and international climate adaptation policy networks.
Core Funder ·
part of UK Research and Innovation
NERC is the UK's leading funder of environmental research and supports the MACC Hub at King's College London making this work possible.
Impact & Goals
Ambitious targets, grounded in community.
For residents, universities, funders, and local government
Community climate-risk profile for Glasgow
1
Champions trained
15
Residents reached
200+
Month Research Program
12