Each team will receive $2.5 million over five years to study how best to protect people, communities and vital economic sectors, like agriculture and tourism, that are most at risk from the effects of climate change. Two teams will focus specifically on vulnerable indigenous populations. Together, the research projects, which will take place in Canada and in developing countries across four continents, aim to address an important gap in our climate change knowledge, namely, how to anticipate, manage, and reduce climate risk vulnerability through adaptation.

The five successful research teams were selected through a rigorous peer-review process. Their projects and respective team leads are:

• Coastal Cities at Risk: Building Adaptive Capacity for Managing Climate Change in Coastal Megacities. Anond Snidvongs, Chulalongkorn University and Southeast Asia START Regional Research Center, Thailand; Gordon McBean, University of Western Ontario, Canada

• Adapting to Climate Change: Protecting Water Resources in West Africa and Canada. Driss Ouazar, Université Mohammed V Agdal, Maroc; Taha Ouarda, Institut national de la recherche scientifique, Canada

• Partnership for Canada-Caribbean Community Climate Change Adaptation. Murray Simpson, the CARIBSAVE Partnership, Barbados; Daniel Scott, University of Waterloo, Canada

• Indigenous Health Adaptation to Climate Change. Alejandro Llanos, Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia, Peru; Shuaib Lwasa, Makerere University, Uganda; James Ford, McGill University, Canada; Lea Berrang Ford, McGill University, Canada

• Vulnerability and Adaptation to Climate Extremes in the Americas. Fernando Santibañez, Universidad de Chile, Chile; David J. Sauchyn, University of Regina, Canada