Policy support platforms on climate change mitigation and adaptation

Abstract

While numerous platforms have been developed to support climate action, structured evaluations of their design remain limited. This paper presents a novel assessment framework for evaluating climate change mitigation and adaptation policy platforms. The framework includes 43 criteria that are structured around nine design requirement categories, including transparency, ease of use, interactivity, and accessibility. It is applied to ten policy platforms developed under the EU Horizon 2020 programme. Results show that while most of the examined platforms perform strongly in transparency, communication of complex information, and education, they consistently underperform in areas such as active maintenance, security, and accessibility. These findings highlight key areas for improvement by platform developers and funders. In parallel, they demonstrate the framework's flexibility and value as both an evaluation tool and a design guide for future platforms.