The Girona City Council and the University of Girona are promoting the Chair of Climate Action to address the climate crisis from a municipal perspective

Thursday, February 26, 2026

The creation of this new chair arises from the need for coordinated action between public administration and the academic institution in order to address current and future challenges across a range of thematic areas.

The Girona City Council and the University of Girona (UdG) have signed a collaboration agreement to create the Chair in Climate Action, an initiative aimed at addressing the climate crisis through research, training, and municipal‑level interventions. The Chair will focus on analysing and mitigating the impacts of climate change in Girona, working across areas such as the energy transition, food sovereignty, food‑waste reduction, carbon budgeting, and the development of environmental criteria for public procurement.
The initiative was presented by the Mayor of Girona, Lluc Salellas i Vilar, and the Rector of the UdG, Josep Calbó Angrill, accompanied by the Councillor for Climate Action, Sergi Cot Cantalosella, and the Chair's Director, Joaquim Meléndez. The Mayor highlighted the Chair's role in fostering shared learning between the City Council and the University, generating proposals rooted in Girona but applicable beyond the city. The Rector emphasised the UdG's commitment to contributing knowledge, research, and training to support Girona's climate challenges and to strengthen knowledge transfer between academia and public administration. The Councillor for Climate Action underlined the Chair as a new step in the collaboration between the two institutions to jointly address social and environmental challenges. The Director stressed the importance of promoting effective knowledge transfer, training new professionals, and supporting research with practical impact, such as carbon budgeting and climate‑focused procurement.
The Chair aims to promote study, research, and dissemination on climate‑related issues at local, regional, and international levels. In teaching, it will encourage training in climate‑related disciplines, support final degree and master's projects and doctoral research, and organise joint sessions between municipal technical staff and UdG faculty. It will also fund educational activities, event participation, and dissemination materials. In applied research and innovation, the Chair will support joint projects such as developing a municipal carbon‑budgeting methodology, promoting environmental procurement clauses, combating food waste, and studying the role of energy communities in the energy transition.
The City Council commits to providing necessary information, participating in communication efforts, and assigning a municipal technical coordinator. It will contribute €10,000 to support teaching, training, applied research, and innovation activities. The UdG will contribute €4,000, and the Chair will remain open to additional funding from relevant stakeholders. Activities will be compiled in an annual report prepared by the UdG, and a technical monitoring committee with representatives from both institutions will oversee the agreement.
The collaboration stems from the shared need for coordinated action between public administration and academia to address current and future climate‑related challenges across multiple thematic areas.