Antonio Navarra appointed as new JPI Climate Chair

Lecce (IT), 29.09.2023

We are delighted to announce that Prof. Antonio Navarra has been appointed as the new chair of JPI Climate. He will take over this role from Frank McGovern, who chaired JPI Climate from 2017 to 2023. 

The appointment took place during the 27th JPI Climate Governing Board Meeting, held in combination with the 3rd General Assembly of the EU-funded project MAGICA.

Antonio Navarra is the President of the Foundation “Centro Euro-Mediterraneo sui Cambiamenti Climatici” (CMCC, “Euro-Mediterranean Centre on Climate Change”), a multidisciplinary research centre whose mission is to investigate and model the human climate system – and a long-time member of the JPI Climate. 

Full Professor at the University of Bologna, Antonio Navarra graduated in Physics and holds a PhD from Princeton University’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory. He has extensive experience in climate numerical experiments and numerical methods as a scientific investigation and discovery tool. He has also held appointments as an Affiliate Scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR, Boulder) and on the Asia-Pacific Climate Centre advisory board in South Korea. He has been on the Board of the ECMWF Council and on the Board of the UN Adaptation Fund.

JPI Climate is an initiative of European member states and associated members to align national programmes by jointly coordinating their climate research and funding new transnational research activities. Transnational coordination of the research base aims to overcome unwanted fragmentation, make better use of public R&D resources by creating synergies, and facilitate cross-border collaboration between top scientists. https://www.cmcc.it/JPI Climate connects various scientific disciplines, enables cross-border research and increases science-practice interaction. The ambition of JPI Climate is to significantly contribute to underpinning European efforts in tackling the societal challenge of climate change.

MAGICA (the acronym of “MAximising the synergy of European research Governance and Innovation for Climate Action”) is a 4-year CSA funded by the Horizon Europe Programme, and coordinated by CMCC’s Giulia Galluccio. Its main priority is accelerating the development and transfer of knowledge from science to policy and practice within the European Research Area (ERA).

“I am honoured to be appointed JPI Climate’s Chair,” Navarra said after the appointment, “JPI Climate plays a crucial role in meeting the knowledge needs of EU policy and the European society to address climate change.” Referring to his predecessor: “Frank (McGovern) has made incredible efforts as JPI Climate’s Chair in the past years, and the achievements that the JPI accomplished in those years demonstrate the benefits of his chairmanship. I will make every effort to live up to the expectations Frank set.”

JPI Climate takes the opportunity to thank Frank McGovern once more for his dedication and the invaluable work he has done as JPI Climate Chair.