Europe is the fastest-warming continent on Earth, and floods, droughts and water scarcity are increasingly disrupting its economies and ecosystems. To help turn its response into practice, the European Commission has established the Water Resilience Stakeholder Platform — an expert group that will advise on implementing the European Water Resilience Strategy adopted in June 2025.
PIK has been selected as one of a few renowned research institutes following the Commission's call for applications of March 2026. Up to eight places in the Platform were reserved for scientific organisations, academic institutions and research institutes. The group is co-chaired by the Commission's Directorate-General for Environment, the European Committee of the Regions and the European Economic and Social Committee.
The Platform supports the Strategy's three central objectives: restoring and protecting the water cycle, building a water-smart and water-efficient economy, and ensuring access to clean and affordable water and sanitation. Experts of the Platform will advise the EU Commission on water-related topics such as climate-resilient governance and finance, water infrastructure, digitalisation, research and innovation and security and preparedness.
Prof.Fred Hattermann, Vice-Head of Department II "Climate Resilience" and Working Group Leader on Hydrological Risks at PIK, contributes expertise in climate change and hydrology, with a particular focus on hydrological modeling using tools such as SWIM (Soil and Water Integrated Model), a process-based, semi-distributed ecohydrological model.
Dr. Iulii Didovets, senior researcher at PIK's Climate Resilience department, works on water resources and climate change impacts from local catchments to the global scale. He contributes to the World Meteorological Organization's annual State of Global Water Resources report and to a Lancet Commission on climate change, migration and health. He is a Lead Author of the upcoming Seventh Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC AR7, Working Group II).
