Building resilience through co-production - Edinburgh Impact
Source: https://impact.ed.ac.uk/opinion/building-resilience-through-co-production
Archived: 2026-04-23 17:16
Building resilience through co-production - Edinburgh Impact
Skip to content
Written by
Professor Soledad Garcia Ferrari
Personal Chair of Global Urbanism and Resilience
Share
Share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
Facebook
Share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
LinkedIn
Share on Mail (Opens in new window)
Mail
All articles are licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License
.
Opinion: the views expressed in this section are those of the contributors and do not necessarily represent those of the University.
Building resilience through co-production
6
minutes reading time
April 22, 2026
Opinion
International Mother Earth Day 2026, on April 22, marks the need for a shift to a more sustainable ecosystem - one that works for people and the planet.
This is a crucial time for climate action. Could a turning point in the climate agenda rest on a shift from top down implementation of mitigation measures to something more collaborative?
Climate is not independent from the loss of biodiversity and deforestation. Solutions cannot be focused only on physical sciences. Taking stock now, might provide a platform for acknowledging that while a focus on resilience allows for a socio-ecosystem to maintain its functional integrity in the face of a shock. It also allows existing unjust and unsustainable practices to continue without questioning underlying sociopolitical assumptions.
This was discussed at a policy briefing published by International Research in Disaster Risk
1
, co-sponsored by the International Science Council. Incremental changes in governance systems can be identified when climate transition actions are implemented considering the wider socio-ecosystem. However, a dramatic change is needed, where transformative adaptation should address the root causes of vulnerability and poverty. Understanding the relationships between people and the environment requires questioning the current system, which favours capitalism and profit over human wellbeing and social equity.
Exploring co-production practices
Climate change measures tend to be implemented from the top down. They are directed by national or regional institutions toward communities, and frequently with a technocratic approach that seeks to solve risks through the construction of infrastructure or the use of technology.
These top-down approaches tend to ignore knowledge and actions that already exist at the local level, and that could be supported, for example, by technical or academic expertise. Tackling climate change impact and potential actions, beyond consultation and participation, requires deliberation and social learning. Both are essential to achieve transformative adaptation through learning by doing and constant experimentation.
In this context, our collaborative research in growing Latin American cities, hosted by Edinburgh’s Centre for Latin American Studies, has explored co-production practices. These enable communities to collaborate around their needs, challenge power imbalances and negotiate with authorities when implementing mitigation and adaptation actions.
El Faro neighbourhood ecologic restoration project: community training by ‘Madretierra Permacultura’, Medellin, Colombia
Community-led action
Medellin, in Colombia, is an Andean city of 4.17 million inhabitants including its metropolitan area, and has high exposure to landslide risks on its urban edge. Our impactful action research collaboration demonstrated vulnerable communities’ knowledge and capacity for monitoring and mitigating landslides. Moreover, community-level pilot interventions in the vulnerable and informal rural-urban border of the city have integrated disaster risk management and climate change adaptation. This has been done through community-led actions around water management, nature-based solutions and forest restauration. These interventions bring together government and community to develop knowledge co-creation and inclusive decision-making processes informing policymaking and implementation.
Our research explored how co-production can restructure relations between civil society and the state. This is redressing power imbalances and antagonisms through bringing together different types of knowledge on a level platform. This approach to tackling climate challenges has led the implementation of appropriate, context-specific, negotiated, and agreed-upon mitigation and adaptation solutions through collective decision-making, multi-scalar negotiations, and power-sharing structures.
Generating successful interventions
Building resilience in the long term requires leveraging non-financial resources at the local level. This is done through articulating community knowledge and capacity with those of local government, not-for-profit organisations and academia. This is particularly important in urban areas exposed to the highest impact from disasters due to economic inequality and informality. Exploring the socio-ecological system within these urban areas, co-produced integrated climate and risk management actions that have focused on generating radical changes, creating opportunities for adaptive transformation, increased community agency, and reduced socioeconomic inequalities and poverty. Although this approach has generated successful interventions towards risk reduction and climate change adaptation, challenges remain around power imbalances and the longevity of interventions if these are not embedded within planning, climate and risk management frameworks.
Exploring avenues for tackling these imbalances and understanding how available data and associated actions related with increasing weather-related risks can contribute more effective early warning systems in urban areas is the aim of the World Weather Research Programme Urban-PREDICT project
2
. Integrating physical and social science, this project combines advanced weather prediction models with community and place-specific insights, including decision-making structures across a range of selected case study cities, to reduce vulnerabilities and enhance climate resilience in urban populations.
Our research demonstrates that strengthening technical and political community capacity and creating spaces for a dialogue of knowledges engaging local communities, academia and governments not only improve communities’ ability to influence policy. It also contributes to the construction of alternative urban planning approaches which may help address the impact of climate change faced by cities.
Image credits: Main image – Wilmar Castro Mera. El Faro neighbourhood group image – Andrés Peña.
Discover more
Global Urban Research Collaborative
Edinburgh Earth Initiative
International Mother Earth Day
International Research in Disaster Risk policy briefing
↩︎
World Weather Research Programme Urban-PREDICT project
↩︎
Article published
22 April 2026
More from Opinion
Good COP or bad COP?
The Brexit vote and the Union: Scotland five years on
There’s more to the rising cost of chocolate than the price of cocoa
Are some languages more difficult than others?
Human after all: How cinema uses AI to extend moral and ethical dilemmas
Conflicts cast shadow over Olympic tradition of peace
Extraordinary Impact
Opinion
Research with impact
Our shared world
Inspiring minds
Our people
Cookies on the Edinburgh Impact website
Cookies on the Edinburgh Impact website
We use cookies to make this website work.
We'd also like to set additional cookies to analyse how our sites are performing and to improve the relevance of our ads.
Functional
Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Analytics cookies
Analytics cookies
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes.
We use analytics cookies so we can see how visitors use our website. This helps us to improve your experience.
Marketing cookies
Marketing cookies
These cookies are set by our advertising partners to show you personalised ads for events and services you might be interested in, such as open days. The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options
Manage services
Manage {vendor_count} vendors
Read more about these purposes
Cookie settings
{title}
{title}
{title}
Skip to content
Written by
Professor Soledad Garcia Ferrari
Personal Chair of Global Urbanism and Resilience
Share
Share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
Share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
Share on Mail (Opens in new window)
All articles are licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License
.
Opinion: the views expressed in this section are those of the contributors and do not necessarily represent those of the University.
Building resilience through co-production
6
minutes reading time
April 22, 2026
Opinion
International Mother Earth Day 2026, on April 22, marks the need for a shift to a more sustainable ecosystem - one that works for people and the planet.
This is a crucial time for climate action. Could a turning point in the climate agenda rest on a shift from top down implementation of mitigation measures to something more collaborative?
Climate is not independent from the loss of biodiversity and deforestation. Solutions cannot be focused only on physical sciences. Taking stock now, might provide a platform for acknowledging that while a focus on resilience allows for a socio-ecosystem to maintain its functional integrity in the face of a shock. It also allows existing unjust and unsustainable practices to continue without questioning underlying sociopolitical assumptions.
This was discussed at a policy briefing published by International Research in Disaster Risk
1
, co-sponsored by the International Science Council. Incremental changes in governance systems can be identified when climate transition actions are implemented considering the wider socio-ecosystem. However, a dramatic change is needed, where transformative adaptation should address the root causes of vulnerability and poverty. Understanding the relationships between people and the environment requires questioning the current system, which favours capitalism and profit over human wellbeing and social equity.
Exploring co-production practices
Climate change measures tend to be implemented from the top down. They are directed by national or regional institutions toward communities, and frequently with a technocratic approach that seeks to solve risks through the construction of infrastructure or the use of technology.
These top-down approaches tend to ignore knowledge and actions that already exist at the local level, and that could be supported, for example, by technical or academic expertise. Tackling climate change impact and potential actions, beyond consultation and participation, requires deliberation and social learning. Both are essential to achieve transformative adaptation through learning by doing and constant experimentation.
In this context, our collaborative research in growing Latin American cities, hosted by Edinburgh’s Centre for Latin American Studies, has explored co-production practices. These enable communities to collaborate around their needs, challenge power imbalances and negotiate with authorities when implementing mitigation and adaptation actions.
El Faro neighbourhood ecologic restoration project: community training by ‘Madretierra Permacultura’, Medellin, Colombia
Community-led action
Medellin, in Colombia, is an Andean city of 4.17 million inhabitants including its metropolitan area, and has high exposure to landslide risks on its urban edge. Our impactful action research collaboration demonstrated vulnerable communities’ knowledge and capacity for monitoring and mitigating landslides. Moreover, community-level pilot interventions in the vulnerable and informal rural-urban border of the city have integrated disaster risk management and climate change adaptation. This has been done through community-led actions around water management, nature-based solutions and forest restauration. These interventions bring together government and community to develop knowledge co-creation and inclusive decision-making processes informing policymaking and implementation.
Our research explored how co-production can restructure relations between civil society and the state. This is redressing power imbalances and antagonisms through bringing together different types of knowledge on a level platform. This approach to tackling climate challenges has led the implementation of appropriate, context-specific, negotiated, and agreed-upon mitigation and adaptation solutions through collective decision-making, multi-scalar negotiations, and power-sharing structures.
Generating successful interventions
Building resilience in the long term requires leveraging non-financial resources at the local level. This is done through articulating community knowledge and capacity with those of local government, not-for-profit organisations and academia. This is particularly important in urban areas exposed to the highest impact from disasters due to economic inequality and informality. Exploring the socio-ecological system within these urban areas, co-produced integrated climate and risk management actions that have focused on generating radical changes, creating opportunities for adaptive transformation, increased community agency, and reduced socioeconomic inequalities and poverty. Although this approach has generated successful interventions towards risk reduction and climate change adaptation, challenges remain around power imbalances and the longevity of interventions if these are not embedded within planning, climate and risk management frameworks.
Exploring avenues for tackling these imbalances and understanding how available data and associated actions related with increasing weather-related risks can contribute more effective early warning systems in urban areas is the aim of the World Weather Research Programme Urban-PREDICT project
2
. Integrating physical and social science, this project combines advanced weather prediction models with community and place-specific insights, including decision-making structures across a range of selected case study cities, to reduce vulnerabilities and enhance climate resilience in urban populations.
Our research demonstrates that strengthening technical and political community capacity and creating spaces for a dialogue of knowledges engaging local communities, academia and governments not only improve communities’ ability to influence policy. It also contributes to the construction of alternative urban planning approaches which may help address the impact of climate change faced by cities.
Image credits: Main image – Wilmar Castro Mera. El Faro neighbourhood group image – Andrés Peña.
Discover more
Global Urban Research Collaborative
Edinburgh Earth Initiative
International Mother Earth Day
International Research in Disaster Risk policy briefing
↩︎
World Weather Research Programme Urban-PREDICT project
↩︎
Article published
22 April 2026
More from Opinion
Good COP or bad COP?
The Brexit vote and the Union: Scotland five years on
There’s more to the rising cost of chocolate than the price of cocoa
Are some languages more difficult than others?
Human after all: How cinema uses AI to extend moral and ethical dilemmas
Conflicts cast shadow over Olympic tradition of peace
Extraordinary Impact
Opinion
Research with impact
Our shared world
Inspiring minds
Our people
Cookies on the Edinburgh Impact website
Cookies on the Edinburgh Impact website
We use cookies to make this website work.
We'd also like to set additional cookies to analyse how our sites are performing and to improve the relevance of our ads.
Functional
Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Analytics cookies
Analytics cookies
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes.
We use analytics cookies so we can see how visitors use our website. This helps us to improve your experience.
Marketing cookies
Marketing cookies
These cookies are set by our advertising partners to show you personalised ads for events and services you might be interested in, such as open days. The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options
Manage services
Manage {vendor_count} vendors
Read more about these purposes
Cookie settings
{title}
{title}
{title}