The 3rd TRANSCEND Webstival took place from 27 to 29 April 2026, bringing together researchers, practitioners, and Living Lab representatives to explore how transformative adaptation in water management can be enabled through strengthened financial, institutional, and technical capacities. Across three days, the event combined keynote speeches, panel discussions, and interactive sessions, fostering exchange between science, policy, and practice. The Webstival marked a key milestone in the project, consolidating results from the Living Labs and reflecting on pathways for upscaling and long-term implementation.
Day 1 – Advancing financial pathways for transformative adaptation
The Webstival opened with an overview of the TRANSCEND project presented by Dionisio Pérez-Blanco (IMDEA Water), who framed the discussion within the project’s final phase, highlighting the shift from co-design towards co-implementation of adaptation pathways. The opening set a forward-looking tone, emphasizing the Webstival as a moment to consolidate learning and strengthen the legacy of the Living Labs.
The keynote session, delivered by Jaroslav Mysiak (CMCC), focused on the financial dimension of adaptation and the challenge of developing bankable projects in a context of increasing climate uncertainty. The presentation examined the widening gap between adaptation needs and available funding, underlining the importance of mobilising both public and private capital. Particular attention was given to the conditions that make adaptation projects financially viable, including scalability, risk management, and institutional readiness, as well as to emerging opportunities under the EU Mission on Climate Adaptation.
A central moment of the first day was the Living Lab panel discussion, moderated within the TRANSCEND consortium and featuring contributions from the Mahanadi River Basin (India), the Júcar River Basin (Spain), and the Orontes River Basin (Lebanon). Speakers highlighted how financial challenges and opportunities vary significantly across contexts. From subsidy-dependent agricultural systems in India, to multi-level European funding frameworks in Spain, to crisis-affected governance environments in Lebanon, the discussion underscored the diversity of adaptation financing realities. Despite these differences, a common conclusion emerged: transformative adaptation requires not only financial resources, but also stronger institutional coordination and tailored governance arrangements capable of responding to local conditions.
Day 2 – Strengthening institutional capacity for resilience
The second day opened with a keynote by Thomas Kutz (Climate KIC), who presented a structured approach to building institutional capacity for transformative adaptation, drawing on the Pathways to Resilience programme. He emphasized the need to move beyond incremental responses and instead foster systemic change through anticipatory, absorptive, adaptive, and transformative capacities. A key message of the session was that institutional readiness often lags behind technical expertise, making governance and coordination central challenges for implementation.
Following the keynote, Francesco Sapino (IMDEA Water) moderated an interactive session that engaged participants in identifying key institutional barriers. Budget constraints and power asymmetries emerged as dominant obstacles, while public-private partnerships, polycentric governance models, and consensus-building were highlighted as critical enablers of transformation.
The Living Lab panel that followed brought together experiences from the Titicaca–Desaguadero system (Bolivia–Peru), the Nitra River Basin (Slovakia), and the Orontes Basin (Lebanon). Discussions, introduced and facilitated within the TRANSCEND framework, highlighted the foundational role of data availability and monitoring systems in enabling adaptation. At the same time, they exposed persistent challenges linked to fragmented information, limited interoperability, and uneven technical capacity. A second key theme was the difficulty of coordination across governance levels and, particularly in transboundary contexts, the need to build trust and align institutional priorities. The session concluded by stressing the gap between technical knowledge and institutional readiness, reinforcing the importance of moving from analysis to implementation through strengthened governance frameworks.
Day 3 – Enhancing technical capacity for multi-risk adaptation
The final day focused on technical capacities for transformative adaptation, opening with a keynote by Silvia Torresan (CMCC), who addressed the increasing complexity of climate risk in a context of interconnected and systemic hazards. She highlighted the need to move from single-risk assessments to integrated multi-risk approaches that consider the interaction between droughts, floods, heatwaves, and socio-economic vulnerabilities. The keynote also emphasized the importance of improving data accessibility and interoperability, and of integrating nature-based solutions within risk management strategies. Emerging tools such as CLIMAAX were presented as key enablers for making advanced risk assessment more accessible to local and regional authorities.
An interactive session moderated by Dionisio Pérez-Blanco (IMDEA Water) further explored barriers to implementation, once again highlighting financial constraints and governance dynamics as key challenges, while identifying collaborative and participatory governance models as priority areas for action.
The final Living Lab panel, introduced by Majid Niyaskar (CMCC), brought together experiences from the Titicaca Basin (Bolivia–Peru), the Reno River Basin (Italy), and the Timpaki/Mesara Basin (Crete). The discussion focused on how technical capacity is being strengthened through the integration of modelling systems, monitoring tools, and participatory approaches such as serious games. In the Titicaca system, these tools are being used to translate complex hydrological and economic models into interactive decision-support environments. In the Reno Basin, integrated modelling frameworks combining climate, hydrological, and socio-economic data are supporting regional adaptation planning processes, including ongoing strategy updates. In Crete, stakeholder-driven modelling exercises revealed how participatory tools can surface preferences and trade-offs in water management decisions.
Across all cases, the panel emphasized that technical capacity is not only about tools and models, but about the ability to embed them within co-learning processes that connect scientists, stakeholders, and decision-makers. The session concluded with a forward-looking reflection on the sustainability of project results, highlighting the need for continued investment through regional programmes, EU initiatives, and innovative financing mechanisms to ensure long-term impact.