What Works Climate Solutions (WWCS) is pleased to announce funding from Wellcome to scale its global initiative to strengthen evidence-based climate policy.
The news represents a significant step in WWCS’s ability to grow and professionalize — moving from a largely volunteer-run, community-driven movement to a resourced evidence infrastructure for climate action.
“Ambition alone won’t solve the climate crisis. This funding lets us build something more powerful: a global community — spanning science, policy and practice — that co-produces and applies the best available evidence to find and implement real climate solutions at scale,” says Jan Minx, Head of the Evidence for Climate Solutions Working Group at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), and at the forefront of building the initiative since its inception.
With this support, WWCS will deepen its collaborative model by bringing together scientists, policymakers and practitioners around shared questions: what climate policies work, under what conditions, for whom, and why. This work spans a suite of interconnected initiatives — gold-standard evidence synthesis, training and methodological support through an evidence accelerator, a citizen science platform (the What Works Crowd) for screening and classifying climate policy evidence, a living evidence bank, and the convening power of events including the next WWCS Summit — all oriented toward a single horizon: a world where decision-makers reach for the best available evidence when identifying and implementing impactful climate solutions.
Since the inaugural WWCS Summit in Berlin in June 2024 — which convened more than 330 participants from 50 countries — the initiative has steadily grown. The WWCS LinkedIn community now numbers more than 2,500 members, and work is already underway: the first call for African-led evidence synthesis teams on climate and health drew 25 proposals, and the initiative’s first citizen science crowd task launched this month — completing more than 2,100 classifications and identifying 256 studies in just two days.
Wellcome’s support comes at a critical moment. With the next Global Stocktake due in 2028, there is an urgent need for rigorous, synthesized evidence on what climate solutions work — evidence that currently does not exist in a systematic form. This funding gives WWCS the capacity to deliver its fair share of that need.
“Strengthening the science behind climate and health solutions is essential. WWCS is building the rigorous evidence base that policymakers need, and this investment ensures that science is translated into real, effective action for climate‑vulnerable communities,” says Isabel Fletcher, Evidence synthesis lead at Wellcome.
The infrastructure is being built. The cultural shift in how climate evidence is produced, shared and used is already underway.
What partners are saying…
- “Rigorous evidence synthesis has been essential for informed decision-making in global health. Bringing this approach into the climate and health field is vital — especially as we can learn from established practices in health to respond to climate change, which is urgent, fast-moving, and increasingly affecting people’s wellbeing worldwide.” — Pauline Scheelbeek, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine
- “We are so excited that Cochrane Crowd will be a part of this important project, harnessing the power and enthusiasm of citizen scientists who want to make a positive difference. Climate change is one of the biggest challenges facing humanity and can often feel overwhelming. Creating the What Works Climate Solutions Crowd will offer a tangible way for people to help advance research into practical solutions by identifying and classifying vital evidence.” — Anna Noel-Storr, The Cochrane Collaboration
- “For Africa, this means building the capacity to lead rigorous evidence synthesis on climate and health — ensuring the research that shapes policy reflects the realities of the most affected communities.” — Solange Durao, Cochrane Africa
- “This investment will strengthen the context-sensitive evidence base that global assessments draw from — and will support the strengthening of evidence synthesis capacity and expertise within the climate and health community on the African continent.” — Emmanuel Effa, Cochrane Nigeria
- “The potential for evidence to make a difference is so often limited because of a lack of resources. This funding will mean the WWCS Initiative can really deliver.” — Maria Pontes, Future Evidence Foundation
- “We are excited about what this new funding will mean for the WWCS initiative. We really believe in the value of evidence networks for driving change, and will now be able to grow and strengthen the WWCS Network and focus together on driving outcomes for people and planet through evidence-informed decision-making.” — Ruth Stewart, Future Evidence Foundation
About the partnership
WWCS is led by a consortium of partners bringing together climate science, evidence synthesis, and community engagement:
- Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK)
- London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM)
- The Cochrane Collaboration, Cochrane Africa and Cochrane Nigeria
- Future Evidence Foundation (FEF)
- The Campbell Collaboration
What’s next
In the coming months, WWCS will announce selected African-led evidence synthesis teams, scale its crowd-sourced evidence screening, welcome new team members, and share plans for the next WWCS Summit in 2027.
At-a-glance
- What is WWCS? What Works Climate Solutions is a community-driven initiative by climate change researchers, decision-makers and evidence synthesis enthusiasts.
- Our vision: We envision a world where decision-makers use the best available evidence to identify and implement impactful climate solutions.
- Our Mission: To accelerate the transition to evidence-based climate policy. Rigorous and useful bodies of knowledge are created through collaboration between scientists, policymakers, funders, publishers, and civil society; together these groups will achieve a cultural shift in the way evidence is summarized, shared, and used, fostering accelerated and improved climate action.
- Funding: €2.8 million from Wellcome
- What it enables: Connecting scientists, policymakers and practitioners who produce, share and use the best-available evidence together – to shift the culture of climate decision-making; gold-standard evidence synthesis; an evidence accelerator providing training and methodological support; the WWCS Crowd citizen science platform; events including the 2027 WWCS Summit; a living evidence bank; and continued growth of the WWCS community and network.
- The gap: We have robust systems for modelling climate futures, but no equivalent for rigorously assessing what climate policies work in practice. WWCS is building that system.
- Partnership: PIK (lead), LSHTM, Cochrane, Cochrane Africa, Cochrane Nigeria, Future Evidence Foundation
- Community: 2,500+ LinkedIn members (as of early 2026); 330+ summit participants from 50 countries (2024)
- Learn more: whatworksclimate.solutions