Putting people at the centre of UK climate adaptation & resilience

This report examines how social science can improve climate adaptation and resilience policy in the UK. Produced by the ACCESS Task Force on Adaptation and Resilience with support from the Government Office for Science, it synthesizes published evidence, expert input and workshops to show why adaptation should be understood as a social as well as technical process. The report highlights how people’s vulnerability, capacity to act, trust, lived experience and local context shape whether adaptation measures are understood, accepted and taken up.

The conclusion is that adaptation policy should put people’s needs, behaviors and inequalities at the center from the start. The report calls for early use of social science evidence, flexible policy design, public involvement, interdisciplinary approaches, system-wide evaluation and stronger capacity to use social insights in government.