The general objective of the research is to assess the gendered nature of key risks under climate change and investigates processes, factors, and barriers for innovative institutional arrangements and differential knowledge, practices, and agency that influence the adaptive capacity of local agri-food systems in order to evaluate potentialities and challenges for adaptation in Mediterranean marginal rural areas.
The research is thus aimed to:
- Acknowledge drivers of change and scenarios of climate change in the Mediterranean context and their specific influence on gendered dimensions of social risk and vulnerability in marginal rural areas;
- Explore in-depth local agrifood system configurations, as complex social-ecological systems, in terms of their components (resources and units, socio-economic and cultural system, institutional arrangements);
- Analyze processes of social learning and knowledge and understand barriers or catalyzers and mechanisms through which innovative interactions (i.e. social innovation as a novelty in knowledge, institutions, and practices) operate;
- Evaluate challenges and potentiality for future transformative adaptation of agrifood systems in marginal rural areas and assess outcomes in social risk, adaptive capacity, and social equity;
- Test novel engagement and communication activities that can increase the societal impact of the research.