EMPOwer ANDES societies to improve adaptation to climate change through the co-creation of climate services capacities (EMPOANDES, 2025-2028)

The Andean Region of the Latin America is one of the most sensitive areas to climate variability and change. Climate change is modifying the occurrence of extreme events, such as extreme precipitation, floods, droughts, cold waves or heatwaves, and their associated impacts. The objective of the project “EMPOwer ANDES societies to improve adaptation to climate change through the co-creation of climate services capacities” is to develop official education actions at different levels for students, professionals and citizens. It is the project of the Erasmus+ Call: ERASMUS-EDU-2025-CBHE (Capacity building in the field of higher education) and co-funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union under project# 101236788.

EMPOANDES will encompass the local, national and regional scales to become a key channel to empower the Andean societies, organizations, governments and individuals to face climate change effects. The project will engage with the communities and put them in a central position to co-create, compute and communicate climate information through tools designed for decision-making. The project implies the elaboration of short-, medium- and long-term competency-based approaches to academic actions, courses, training and materials with the use of pedagogical techniques for training of specialists at various levels. The main field of the courses is climate services, but not only. EMPOANDES will induce progress in the access to climate information, capacity development on climate data tools and technologies, a deep understanding of the regional climate, improve the representation in climate models, and coupling with impact-based models is a severe gap in the state-of-art technology.

The consortium targets the Andean region forming a multidisciplinary partnership composed of leading institutions from Europe (the Universitat Rovira i Virgili, the University of Patras, and the University of Helsinki) and Latin America (universities and national meteorological services from Ecuador, Peru, Colombia, and Bolivia), as well as key research centers like the Centro Internacional de Investigación del Fenómeno del Niño, collaboratively addressing climate education and services.

EMPOANDES WorkPackages (WPs):

WP1: Project Management and Coordination

WP2: Definition of High Education Institutions and Community Needs

WP3: Curricula Development

WP4: Staff Capacity Building

WP5: Piloting Capacity Development and Community Empowerment

WP6: Dissemination and Communication

Contact Information:

  • Project Coordinator – Prof. Enric Aguilar Anfrons (enric.aguilar(at)urv.cat), Institut Universitari de Recerca en Sostenibilitat, Canvi Climàtic i Transició Energètica (IU-RESCAT), Universitat Rovira i Virgili (URV), Spain
  • Project Manager – Dr. Jon Xavier Olano Pozo (jonxavier.olano(at)urv.cat), Universitat Rovira i Virgili (URV), Spain
  • UHEL Team Leader – Dr. Hanna K. Lappalainen (hanna.k.lappalainen(at)helsinki.fi), University of Helsinki, Institute for Atmospheric and Earth System Research, Helsinki, Finland
  • UHEL Team Members – Laura Riuttanen, Svyatoslav Tyuryakov, Alexander Mahura, …
  • See more details about the EMPOANDES project at: http://empoandes.eu

EMPOANDES Partners/ Teams:

  1. IU-RESCAT, Universitat Rovira i Virgili (URV), Tarragona, Spain (coordinador)
  2. Panepistimi Patron (UPAT), Universitat de Patras, Patras, Greece
  3. Helsingin Yliopisto (UHEL), University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland
  4. Universidad de las Americas (UDLA), Quito, Ecuador
  5. Universidad central de Ecuador (UCE), Quito, Ecuador
  6. Universidad de Investigacion De Tecnologia Experimental Yachay (YACHAYTECH), Urcuqui, Ecuador
  7. Universidad Nacional del Altiplano (UNAP), Puno, Peru
  8. Universidad Nacional Agraria La Molina (UNALM), Lima, Peru
  9. Universidad del Valle (UNIVALLE) Cali, Colombia
  10. Universidad Nacional de Colombia (UNAL), Bogota, Colombia
  11. Centro Internacional para la Investigacion del Fenomeno de El Niño (CIIFEN), Guayaquil, Ecuador
  12. Instituto Nacional de Meteorología e Hidrología (INAMHI), Quito, Ecuador
  13. Servicio Nacional de Meteorologia e Hidrologia del Peru (SENAMHI), Lima, Peru
  14. Instituto de Hidrologia, Meteorologia y Estudios Ambientales (IDEAM), Bogota, Colombia
  15. Universidad de Concepción (UdeC), Concepcion, Chile
  16. Dirección Meteorológica de Chile (DMC), Santiago de Chile, Chile