REKLIM: Structure

Founded in 2009, the REKLIM climate initiative has established a successful bottom-up strategy for prioritising research questions of social relevance and making its findings available to society at large by pursuing a knowledge transfer approach. It is a close-knit network of scholars in various stages of their careers, regardless of which Helmholtz Centre or which field they call home, with a special focus on those with a PhD or higher. Over the years, its research topics and structure have evolved dynamically, and been adjusted in several stages.

You can read more about our research topics in the first and second financing periods here …

REKLIM since 2021

Coinciding with the new programme period for the years 2021 – 2027, in 2021 the Helmholtz Association introduced a new, joint ‘Earth and the Environment’ research programme for all seven Research Centres, titled Changing Earth – Sustaining Our Future. In the context of the programme, network activities are intended to serve as bridge-building instruments that connect either different topics (Cross-Topic Activities, CTAs) or different research fields (Cooperations Across Research Fields, CARFs). In this new research programme, REKLIM serves as a CARF, bringing together a total of nine Helmholtz Centres (seven from the field Earth and the Environment (AWI, FZJ, GEOMAR, GFZ, Hereon, KIT and UFZ), one from Health (HGMU), and one from Aeronautics, Space and Transport (DLR)).

In this context, REKLIM has defined six Research Themes (RTs), which are investigated across research centres and topics, and which complement the new Helmholtz research programme:

Research Theme 1: Drivers and coastal impacts of sea-level rise
Research Theme 2: Coupled regional modelling
Research Theme 3: Extreme events across temporal and spatial scales
Research Theme 4: Atmospheric composition including greenhouse gases
Research Theme 5: Regional cultures of response to climate change and extreme events
Research Theme 6: Land surface and its feedback mechanisms

In addition, from the outset knowledge transfer has been pursued and expanded through a broad range of activities – like workshops, regional and international conferences, and the development of digital products, information platforms and information products, not to mention extensive efforts in the area of training and education. Here you can find an overview of our activities to date.