Set against scientific predictions, the current governance responses to climate change are widely perceived to be inadequate. There is a growing perception that climate governance is becoming more polycentric, but far less agreement on how it will be coordinated and where the necessary leadership will originate.This is deeply problematic, because in theory innovative and cost effective policies should prevent losses arising from climate change and better capture any benefits. To address this gap, this Action will help build the capacity for innovating in climate governance by: identifying effective ways of stimulating and diffusing policy and governance innovations; building a stronger evaluation capacity to assess such innovations; and spreading usable knowledge in innovative ways such as via open access course materials. To do all this, it will create a new network of scholars and practitioners that have operated in a fragmented way thus far, specifically those that have focused on the sources of policy innovation, those that know about their diffusion patterns, and those who are able to evaluate their ultimate effects. A COST Action is the perfect vehicle to defragment knowledge of these topics by extracting greater value from and better integrating across previous research investments.
