5 Marie Skłodowska-Curie grants to 5 researchers based at the CMCC Foundation. They will address complex and multidisciplinary challenges dealing with climate change and sustainable development.

The Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions, the European Union’s reference programme for doctoral education and postdoctoral training, will support five post-doctoral researchers that will conduct their advanced research at the CMCC Foundation – Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change (CMCC) and Ca’ Foscari University of Venice.
The action provides support to excellent individual researchers to implement an original and personalized research project, while developing their skills through advanced training, international, interdisciplinary and inter-sectoral mobility.

The awarded projects are highly innovative and multidisciplinary, involving different scientific Divisions at the CMCC and the center CMCC@Ca’Foscari, the strategic partnership between the CMCC Foundation and Ca’ Foscari University of Venice.
The international attractiveness of the CMCC is attested to the nationalities, the universities and research centers of origin and the research topics of those researchers who have chosen the CMCC Foundation and Ca’ Foscari University to carry on their work.

Here are their stories.

Leone Cavicchia comes from the University of Melbourne, Australia. Awarded with a MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowship, he will carry out at CMCC headquarters in Bologna the research project CYCLOPS – Improving Mediterranean CYCLOnes Predictions in Seasonal forecasts with artificial intelligence, with Silvio Gualdi, Director of CMCC CSP – Climate Simulation and Prediction Division, as supervisor.
The aim of this project is to improve the predictability of intense Mediterranean cyclones combining advanced artificial intelligence techniques and a state-of-the-art dynamical seasonal prediction system. The project will not only contribute to the knowledge of climate extremes predictability, but also lead to the implementation of a pre-operational dynamical statistical prediction system with the potential to be extended to include different extremes.

Froila M. Palmeiro comes from Spain, where she received her PhD at the University of Barcelona. Her project, entitled Stratospheric Dynamics for Seasonal Prediction” (SD4SP; CMCC supervisor: Silvio Gualdi), aims at improving the understanding of the dynamical mechanisms of troposphere-stratosphere interaction, and how these mechanisms can modulate the remote influence of El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) on the European continent and in the Mediterranean region. The goal of SD4SP is therefore twofold: to identify key sources of predictability and to improve understanding and simulation of the mechanisms responsible for that predictability. SD4SP will bring together theory and applicability disentangling atmospheric teleconnections to satisfactorily exploit them in a seasonal prediction context.

Marcello Sano, Research Fellow at Centre for Coastal Management of Griffith University (Brisbane, Australia) joins CMCC@Ca’Foscari in Venice to carry on the project EXPEDITE – EXPloring opportunitiEs for developing a risk and resilience climate service baseD on bIg daTa and machinE learning, with Prof. Andrea Critto, Senior scientist at CMCC, and Silvia Torresan, CMCC Division Deputy Director of RAAS – Risk Assessment and Adaptation Strategies Division, as supervisors.
EXPEDITE will explore new pathways to reduce and remove the barriers and challenges still remaining for effective implementation of risk assessment and adaptation responses, by exploring, testing and deploying machine learning and data science techniques and by developing and testing a climate service prototype, tailored to end-users. These may include institutional clients (such as Regions), the private sector or individual consumers. A targeted dissemination and communication plan will allow EXPEDITE to share the research activities, outcomes and outputs with researchers, policymakers, the private sector and the general public.

Uzbek Maksud Bekchanov, Research Associate at the University of Hamburg, Germany, joins CMCC@Ca’Foscari headquarters in Venice to lead the project SIMARIS- Strategic Investments in Mitigation, Adaptation and Resource Recovery Innovations at Basin Scale, with Carlo Carraro, President Emeritus and Professor of Environmental Economics at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice and Francesco Bosello, Director of CMCC ECIP – Economic analysis of Climate Change Impacts and Policy, as supervisors.
This research investigates long-term investments required for climate change mitigation, adaptation and resource recovery innovations at river basin scale. This will be achieved through applying a novel approach of integrating intertemporal macroeconomic growth model with process-based hydro-energy-economic model, offering demanded policy-relevant solutions to river basin managers and enriching water management research with novel methods.

Esmeralda Colombo received in 2021 a PhD on access to justice and climate change from University of Bergen, Norway. Awarded with a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships (with CMCC Andrea Bigano and Giulia Galluccio as supervisors) she joins the CMCC in Milan for the project REnergyStorageDESIGN – Europe’s Moment: Designing Effective Policies in Energy Storage Technology for Renewables.
This project focuses on one of the most important areas for decarbonization policies, Energy Storage Technology (EST) for renewable energy, to propose a refined regulatory framework to fulfill the EU’s external and internal commitments in climate policy. The project investigates how sustainable investment in renewable energy storage can be fostered through effective policy design that includes prosumers (energy producing consumers), starting in the EU.  How to effectively foster renewable energy storage is a particularly timely issue in this historical moment; in the long run, empowering and coordinating prosumers and businesses through effective policy design is one of the most promising strategies for the EU to achieve its vision of a citizen-oriented energy future and 100% renewable energy system by 2050. The multidisciplinary nature of the project is strong, involving policy design, EU and international law and sustainable finance.