Join us this month on Thursday, 30 November at 14.00 GMT for the latest in the Research Uptake Roundtable series, ‘Research to practice: experiences from researcher-practitioner partnership’.

As part of ‘Climate Month’ on Research to Action, the Adaptation at Scale in Semi-Arid Regions (ASSAR) research programme will be discussing what academics really want from NGOs and vice versa in the adaptation space; and how far this relationship can be pushed. It will touch on aspects of effective strategic partnerships as well as real examples of what has worked and what hasn’t in a large, multi-country, interdisciplinary research consortium.

ASSAR’s overarching research objective is to use insights from multiple-scale, interdisciplinary work to improve the understanding of the barriers, enablers, and limits to effective, sustained, and widespread adaptation out to the 2030s. Working in a co-ordinated manner across seven countries in India, East Africa, West Africa, and Southern Africa, ASSAR’s research is based on case studies and strives to integrate climatic, environmental, social, and economic change. The dynamics of gender roles and relations form a particularly strong theme throughout their approach.

Each of ASSAR’s teams conducts regionally relevant research focused on specific socio-ecological risks/dynamics that relate centrally to livelihood transitions, and the access, use, and management of land and water resources in water-stressed environments. Focal research themes in each region are: agro-intensification in West Africa; land and water access in East and Southern Africa; and land use, land cover, and livelihood changes in India.

Over its five-year lifespan (2014–2018), the cross-regional comparison and integration of research findings will enable ASSAR to develop a unique and systemic understanding of the processes and factors that impede adaptation and cause vulnerability to persist.

Moderated by Megan Lloyd-Laney the webinar will include panelists from across organisations involved in the ASSAR programme. Panelists include:

• Georgina Cundill Kemp, IDRC Senior Programme Officer for ASSAR
• Renie Thomas, Researcher on Hydro-geology, Watershed Organisation Trust – Centre for Resilience Studies
• Daniel Morchain, Oxfam Global Adviser – Climate Change Adaptation, Resilience & Agriculture
• Professor Chris Gordon, Director of the Institute for Environment and Sanitation Studies, University of Ghana.

Sign up for the webinar here and find out more by following #R2AClimatemonth on social media.