Climate change is the most urgent and hot topic at the moment – globally. Although COVID-19 is affecting our daily lives drastically and people around the world are worried about their future and health due to the pandemic crisis, climate change is continuously one of the everyday topics in newspapers and media. Furthermore challenges in air quality – particularly in megacities – are huge, and the interlinks between air quality and climate is one of the ACCC focus areas.
It is therefore of utmost importance that cooperation programs like ACCC flagship deepens cooperation with various stakeholders. The scientific level of expertise within ACCC is outstanding. Partner universities and Finnish Meteorological Institute are widely known and scientifically recognized around the world. Each research partner has already decades of scientific expertise and cooperation activities in various countries. In the ACCC, various disciplines and hundreds of colleagues are now working together towards common aim – clean air and safe climate.
However, it is easier said than done. Even with all available scientific information and necessary research, we will not reach global climate goals. We need more cooperation and common innovative thinking with other stakeholders – public sector policy-makers and regulators, cities, businesses and third sector organisations. We need to understand different aspects to climate change. This is why ACCC has established a low-threshold connection point to top science – the ACCC Innovation Forum.
The ACCC Innovation Forum – How to detect, discuss and develop cooperation ideas?
The main reason behind the establishment of the ACCC Innovation Forum is the current lack of diverse stakeholders in our flagship program. We need companies as well as public and third sector partners to actively participate in climate action. We need common aims. We need common implementation.
You can be small or large partner. You can come from any business area with interest to have impact on climate change. It is important to find new ways to work together to create scalable business solutions with scientifically verified results. It is as well important to continuously monitor our impact on climate and adjust regulation and policies accordingly. If you have a will, we find a way.
The ACCC Innovation Forum aims to engage more stakeholders to climate and air quality work. We believe that cooperation with the ACCC science partners is the best available vaccination towards the risk of greenwashing and future uncertainty. At the same time, it has to be remembered that all scientific details and motives are not easy to understand for the people working outside research sector. This means that in the ACCC Innovation Forum, we also have to clarify and explain the role of science to other stakeholders, in order to have full impact from science to other sectors of society.
Releasing full potential from science to society as a whole, requires deeper dialogue and lower threshold to contact each other. This is why we encourage everybody to join ACCC Innovation Forum work. We will develop the best possible working methods and innovation processes together and adapt them continuously to meet the needs of our partners.
ACCC Flagship Organisation
- Science and impact advisory board (SIAB) gives high-level strategic guidance
- Steering board consists of university rectors and director general of FMI to keep flagship on course
- Directorate consists of ACCC director and vice-directors from each research partner for program coordination and operative leadership
- Program implementation is managed via three research programs and the impact program tasks
- ACCC Innovation Forum
- connects different stakeholders to ACCC
- develops ideas from research to business, social and other innovation
Interested?
Contact our virtual office acccflagship@helsinki.fi or Chair of the ACCC Innovation Forum Sami Paatero sami.paatero@helsinki.fi