AdaptationHubs brings in multilevel governance perspective to the European Urban Resilience Forum 2026 in Portugal
Guimarães, Portugal. At the European Urban Resilience Forum (EURESFO) 2026, the AdaptationHubs project showcased how stronger cooperation across governance levels can help accelerate climate adaptation across Europe.
Hosted by ICLEI Europe, the European Environment Agency (EEA), and the Municipality of Guimarães, this year's forum explored how resilience can become an integrated part of urban governance. Within the Governance thematic stream, AdaptationHubs and REGILIENCE+ co-organised the session "Bridging structures and breaking silos", moderated by Jen Heemann from IEECP and Federico Aili from the Resilient Cities Network.
Bringing together representatives from the European, national, regional, and local levels, the session explored practical ways for administrations to foster cooperation and effective implementation of adaptation solutions. A large contribution from AdaptationHubs’ side was on how to strengthen multilevel governance for climate adaptation. Speakers included Elisa Rivera Mendoza (Director General, Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities at the EU Commission), Sophie Berger (European Commission – Mission Secretariat, DG RTD), Jonas Lundgreen Dall (Municipality of Vejle, Denmark), Maria Martinez Silvente (Region of Murcia, Spain), and Miljenko Sedlar from REGEA, representing the multilevel approach for resilience from the AdaptationHubs project.
Drawing on Croatia's experience, Miljenko Sedlar highlighted how trust, informal collaboration, and "champions" across institutions can help bridge governance gaps. He emphasised the importance of working with operational staff rather than creating additional administrative structures, noting that "the best thing is when we all speak the same language," and that successful multilevel governance depends on helping stakeholders understand how adaptation supports their existing work, not asking them to become adaptation experts.
"Multi-level governance works through relationships, not bureaucracy" - Miljenko Sedlar (AdaptationHubs coordinator and Head of Climate, REGEA)
The discussion reinforced several ingredients for successful climate governance, including the importance of political and institutional champions, backing from national financial ministries and actors, strong relationships based not on trust rather than hidden agendas, listening across governance levels, investing in leaders to think proactively and holistically, integrated funding approaches, enabling legal frameworks, and collaboration between science and policy.
These various mechanisms help ensure that adaptation stays top of mind, remains a shared responsibility across sectors and departments, and can realistically be implemented by different entities across governance levels. A final statement emerged from the discussion: ‘How do we go beyond job titles and embrace different perspectives, values, and experiences to build more human connections that naturally lead to stronger collaboration?’.
AdaptationHubs presents as a Mission flagship initiative
Beyond the conference session, AdaptationHubs also participated in the Marketplace alongside fellow adaptation initiatives and Mission projects Pathways2Resilience and REGILIENCE+. Miljenko Sedlar presented the project's progress, highlighting that 27 National Adaptation Hubs are now operational across Europe. Conversations with regional and local stakeholders demonstrated strong interest in strengthening national support structures and fostering more effective multilevel governance for adaptation.
Bringing governance into wildfire management in Portugal
The project also contributed to discussions during a workshop on wildfires in Portugal, in which participants collectively reflected on the devastating experience resulting from recent fires, exchanging lessons on governance, preparedness, and resilience in the face of increasing climate risks. This training, facilitated by the Portuguese National Adaptation Hub also highlighted that governance is central to wildfire resilience. While data platforms and community preparedness programmes provide much-needed tools, their success depends on coordinated action across institutions and scales. Participants stressed the importance of sustained funding, clear roles and responsibilities, cross-boundary cooperation between neighbouring municipalities and parishes, and ongoing learning to ensure that prevention, preparedness, and response are integrated into long-term climate adaptation efforts.
As Europe continues to face growing climate challenges, AdaptationHubs remains committed to sharing practical governance approaches that help national, regional, and local authorities work together to deliver more effective and coordinated climate adaptation.
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