Undaunted’s Climate Solutions Catalyst (CSC) aims to accelerate the journey from academic discovery to climate innovation. Its first cohort has supported three research teams working in the field of green catalysis. As the CSC seeks to assemble its second cohort, Christopher Waite and Nicole Alhadeff from the team outline why they are turning their powerful search tool towards climate adaptation and resilience.
One of the CSC’s core aims is to nurture a pathway to translation for academics who may not otherwise have explored the climate innovation potential of their research. Our inaugural cohort was selected using our tool ALMa, and we are already starting to see the fruits of this proactive search and support approach.
A common feature across this first cohort is that the researchers were already working on solutions that clearly link to climate mitigation – some having built careers in their specific fields precisely to move the dial on green energy production or the circular economy. In these cases, the CSC has stepped in to help unlock that potential beyond the lab bench.
This got us thinking… what about research where the climate connection is less obvious? Can our search tool spot hidden opportunities and make the predictive leap to connect, for example, medical lab-on-a-chip diagnostics to environmental monitoring? Could our programme equip academics with the tools and expertise to take those first steps into unfamiliar climate innovation spaces?
These questions become even more important when we look beyond mitigation, which despite the technical and commercial risk has something resembling a ‘playbook’ in place for developing a business case. Challenges related to climate adaptation and resilience (A&R) often lack clear commercial roadmaps or strong IP incentives, making them harder to develop, finance and scale, and more difficult to support through existing mechanisms. This is where the CSC could add the most value, uncovering innovation missions in unexplored ‘white spaces’ – untapped high-potential areas – and providing academics with the support they need to build the next wave of climate solutions.
The adaptation and resilience challenge
Tackling climate change not only means accelerating decarbonisation but also building resilience to the impacts of a warmer and more volatile climate around the globe – from extreme heat mortality, severe droughts and vast forest fires to sea-level rise, crop failures and destructive storms.
Even in the relatively temperate UK, climate change is no longer a distant projection on a graph but our lived experience. Floods, heatwaves, droughts and storms are all increasing in frequency as well as severity. Together these impacts are straining infrastructure built for gentler conditions and putting food and water security at severe risk. Urban areas must adapt to both flash floods and lethal summer heat, while rural ecosystems are not only facing losses of soil fertility and biodiversity but have become hotspots for emerging pests and diseases too.
Despite a critical need for climate A&R solutions to buffer against these climate shocks and stressors, current preparations are lacking and under resourced. The Climate Change Committee recently urged the UK government to accelerate progress on national adaptation as a matter of urgency, akin to policy on decarbonisation. However, less than 10% of global climate funding is currently allocated to A&R projects, and there is little sector-wide consensus on what the possible solutions are and which can be effectively scaled.
Nature-based solutions – from restored wetlands that store floodwater to urban green corridors that cool cities – offer powerful, low-carbon ways to build large-scale climate resilience hand-in-hand with natural ecosystems. However, they also exemplify fundamental challenges associated with financing and deploying A&R solutions, in particular the lack of tools to measure A&R outcomes with confidence and mobilise policy buy-in and investment at the scale required.
The opportunity
A&R presents an enormous growth opportunity for innovation, with societal and economic co-benefits across food, water, energy, nature and public health. Compared to industrial decarbonisation, it represents an innovation ‘blind spot’ with high latent demand but low levels of current commercial activity. This leaves ample white space within which emerging technologies, and modest levels of support can have outsized impact. The UK has an opportunity to regain its leadership role in climate adaptation by drawing on its academic strengths in both nature-based solutions and deep-tech research, from engineering biology and AI to advanced manufacturing.
Integrating deep-tech innovation into A&R presents two key advantages. On the technical side, it enables better solutions that have advanced functionality, improved precision and necessary traceability. On the deployment side, stronger business models can stem from IP-rich technologies that are inherently more valuable for private investment. As it stands, over 70% of predicted adaptation costs resemble public sector investments with public-good or non-market characteristics.
Five missions to tackle adaptation & resilience climate challenges
The CSC surfaces overlooked opportunities in climate innovation, helping to translate them into real-world impact. We’re focused on uncovering cutting-edge research to underpin the solutions of the future, including ideas that have the potential to ‘domain-jump’ into the climate space.
Our second cohort will tackle the A&R challenge across five missions, which we have identified as high-demand and high-risk for the UK. Each one is underpinned by: a real-world problem, an ideal future scenario where A&R outcomes are enabled by deep-tech solutions, and a preliminary hypothesis as to which emerging technologies might feed into that scenario.
Grounded in technical plausibility, the missions aim to inspire highly creative solutions, enabled by the latest breakthroughs in the lab, that could be deployed 10-25 years into the future with a view to pushing existing technologies beyond current demand. While we seek solutions with a current or future UK business case, we do not constrain our scope according to current regulatory and policy positions, which may shift significantly in the medium term. Our ALMa pipeline then scans for research that is: (1) of direct mission-relevance, (2) is a technical advance on the state of the art, (3) has feasible prospects for protectable IP, and (4) has large potential A&R impact.
Next generation environmental monitoring: Measuring resilience at scale
The problem: If A&R outcomes can’t be measured as easily as carbon, then potential solutions won’t scale. Across every sector, we still lack the decision-grade environmental monitoring data needed to prove what works and give investors confidence to finance projects.
Potential solution: Advances in real-time, low-cost monitoring could change that. With trustable measurement, reporting and verification (MRV) data, A&R projects could promise measurable outcomes with reduced risk.
What solutions emerge at the nexus between living systems and deep-tech to enable remote, scalable and rich data collection to make this possible?
In a deep-tech future… A&R accounting is as routine as carbon accounting: bio-based indicators, in situ self-powered sensors and earth observation detect early warning signals and track ecosystem responses to shocks. Data is fed into AI systems and localised digital twins to quantify avoided losses and co-benefits in near-real time – enabling performance-based procurement and finance at scale.
Climate-smart farmland: Crop and soil systems as resilience infrastructure
The problem: Intensive agriculture based on annual crops has gradually degraded soil, water and ecosystem resilience, to the point that extreme weather events now risk harvest failures, flooding and habitat loss.
Potential solution: Perennial systems – tree crops, shrubs, multi-strata agroforestry and silvopasture – stabilise soils, store water and create long-lived habitats as co-benefits of their primary economic products. Advances in engineering biology offer additional potential to augment both crops and soil microbiomes with climate-resilient traits.
How could perennial crop systems and smart soils be deployed to restore ecosystem resilience and guarantee food security under climate extremes?
In a deep-tech future… Fields function as living reservoirs of water, nutrients and biodiversity. Crops are precision-bred to withstand drought, heat and salinity. Engineered microbiomes promote healthy soil and boost yields though extremes. Smart sensors and imaging tools guide irrigation and decision making, creating adaptable farms that that can learn and regenerate.
‘Resilience-as-a-Service’: Modular blue-green infrastructure for urban cooling and flood risk
The problem: Cities face a growing double threat: flash floods and extreme heat. Yet most local authorities in England lack adaptation plans or affordable, small-scale solutions to tackle these challenges.
Potential solution: Modular, turnkey units that combine inexpensive nature-based micro-infrastructure with smart control systems and built-in MRV could provide standardised resilience outcomes and unlock repeatable financing and localised deployment models.
Could we deliver urban resilience the way we deliver solar microgrids: modular and on-demand?
In a deep-tech future… Pre-certified micro-infrastructure kits tailored to local risks delivery hydro-thermal resilience services to cities. Green walls, containerised wetlands, and shaded water loops form a connected blue-green infrastructure network that manages cooling and flood control through microclimate sensors and smart water systems. Communities and services can buy verified performance outcomes, such as fewer downtime events and hospital admissions, rather than build bespoke assets.
Watershed operating systems: Nature-augmented catchments that drink storms and blunt floods
The problem: Water security underpins our economy and society, from food and energy security to public health, but existing water management infrastructure is breaking under the strain of ever more extreme floods and droughts.
Potential solution: Nature can help carry the load. Ecosystems have a huge capacity to store and steer water, upstream of communities and urban infrastructure, especially if actively integrated into real-time control systems that can adapt to forecasted flows and reconfigure after shock events.
How can technology and nature work together to make watersheds self-managing in the face of floods and droughts?
In a deep-tech future… Floodplains, wetlands and re-meandered rivers add self-sustaining ‘living storage’ capacity to water infrastructure. Distributed in situ sensors enable network level optimisation, from hotspot prediction to pre-emptive flow control. Targeted engineered biology solutions enable self-cleaning wetlands and structural stabilisation of erosion-prone soils and embankments. Ecological and hydrological monitoring, basin-scale digital twins and earth observation mapping all feed into verifiable basin performance metrics.
Disease-proof ecosystems: Advanced surveillance and suppression systems for public and environmental health
The problem: As the UK warms, new pathogens, pests and invasive species are taking hold, threatening public health, food security and natural ecosystems. Current bio-security surveillance across human, agricultural and ecosystem health sectors is fragmented and reactive to outbreaks.
Potential solution: Integrating advanced biological surveillance techniques across sectors and coupling them to rapid, targeted and nature-aligned control interventions could enable suppression of outbreaks before they lead to economic and public health impacts.
What if we could embed technology into natural ecosystems so that they could detect and defend themselves against emerging threats?
In a deep-tech future… A continuous bio-surveillance system – built on eDNA, advanced in-field diagnostic assays and low-power biosensors – spans wetlands, farms, forests and blue-green infrastructure assets. Remote observations and microclimate sensing feed risk models and early-warning systems. Nature-aligned controls, from pheromone disruption to drone-enabled release of bio-pesticides, are targeted specifically to hot spots to suppress spread without collateral ecological damage.
Get Involved
Over the next six months, we’ll be building a programme of bespoke support for a focused cohort of A&R innovations, as well as crowding-in a broader community of researchers and stakeholders around our five thematic missions for greater impact and thought leadership. Watch this space for opportunities to support our programme and join us at A&R events. We always want to hear from you if you can bring relevant expertise to the table. Please get in touch with the team via email.
In the meantime, if you are part of the wider innovation ecosystem – an industry innovation lead, an academic exploring entrepreneurship, or an investor scouting your next breakthrough venture – please join us at our December Catalyst Summit in London, where we’ll showcase our inaugural cohort and co-create follow-on support. Sign up to the Undaunted newsletter to stay tuned.
