Dr Marta Bruno Soares
- Position: University Academic Fellow
- Areas of expertise: Climate services; value of climate information; stakeholder engagement; seasonal climate forecasts; science-policy interface; climate change vulnerability and adaptation
- Email: M.BrunoSoares@leeds.ac.uk
- Website: LinkedIn | Googlescholar | ORCID
Profile
Dr Marta Bruno Soares is a University Academic Fellow at the University of Leeds. Marta also has an adjunt position at NORCE. Marta is a social scientist and her research revolves around the development of climate services across a range of sectors, organisations and geographical regions with a particular focus on understanding the barriers and enablers to the use of climate information, assessing the value climate information in decision-making processes, enhancing stakeholders' engagement in co-production processes, and the analysis of science-policy interface.
Before coming to academia, Marta worked as a policy planner in the UK focusing on developing climate change planning policies at the local level and working on related activities (public consultation, strategic environmental assessment, GIS, and monitoring). Marta has also been working as a consultant since 2022.
Current projects
- Role of purveyors in delivering climate services in the UK (REVEAL) (2024-2025; £75k; DEFRA) – Institutional PI
- Regional Framework for Climate Services in East Africa (2024-2026; Indidivual consultancy)
- Horizon Europe Impetus for Change (I4C) (2023-2026; €5M) – Delivering through NORCE
- H2020 project ‘Co-production of climate services for East Africa’ (CONFER; 2020-2024; €7M) – Institutional PI and leading work-package on co-production.
- H2020 project 'Turning climate-related information into added value for traditional MEDiterranean Grape, OLive and Durum wheat food systems'(MED-GOLD; 2017-2021; €5M) – Institutional PI and leading the work package on cross-sectoral user engagement and validation and upscaling of the climate pilot services across the European community
- DFID-funded programme 'Asia: Regional Resilience to a Changing Climate'(ARRCC; 2018-2022; £12M) – Institutional PI and leading the VALUE work package on the assessment of the socio-benefits across and within the ARRCC programme
- Copernicus Climate Change Service contract on 'User Learning Services'(ULS; 2018-2021; €1.5M) – Institutional PI and leading the work on training needs across Europe as well as the monitoring and evaluation of the programme
- H2020 project 'REmote Climate Effects and their Impact on European sustainability, Policy and Trade' (RECEIPT; 2019-2023; €7M) - Co-I contributing to WP2 on storylines development for the various sectoral application areas
Previous projects
- NERC SHEAR Catalyst funded project IPACE Malawi (2018-2020; £250k) - Co-I and leading the work package on the co-development and evaluation of the climate service
- Newton Fund Climate Science for Service Partnership project looking at priorities for urban climate services development in China (2017-2019; £200K; PI and leading the work on the assessment of the priorities for urban climate services in Shanghai and Beijing)
- Copernicus Climate Change Service 'Sector engagement for C3S, Translating European User Requirements' (SECTEUR; 2016-2017; €270k; Co-I)
- Copernicus Climate Change Service 'Quality Assessment Strategies for Multi-Model Seasonal Forecasts' (QA4Seas; 2016-2018; €250k; Co-I)
- FP7 project 'European Provision Of Regional Impacts Assessments on Seasonal and decadal timescales' (EUPORIAS; 2012-2017; work package leader)
External facing roles
- Met Office Academic Partnership (involved in the 'Weather, Climate and Social Science’ theme)
- Associate editor for Environmental Science and Policy Journal
- Associate editor for Frontiers in Climate – Climate Risk Management section
Qualifications
- PhD on Climate change vulnerability and adaptation (University of the West of Scotland and Edinburgh University, UK)
- MSc in Spatial Planning (Oxford Brookes University, UK)
- BSc in Environmental Management (Universidade Atlântica, Portugal)
Current PhD supervision
Jillian Schacher 'Comparative advantages and ethical considerations of public vs. private climate service providers' (Co-supervised with Suraje Dessai and Rob Lawlor)
<h4>Research projects</h4> <p>Some research projects I'm currently working on, or have worked on, will be listed below. Our list of all <a href="https://environment.leeds.ac.uk/dir/research-projects">research projects</a> allows you to view and search the full list of projects in the faculty.</p>
- ARRCC: Asia Regional Resilience to a Changing Climate
- Copernicus User Learning Services
- CSSP China: End User Needs for City Based Climate Services in China
- IPACE-Malawi: Improving Preparedness to Agro-Climatic Extremes in Malawi
- MED-GOLD: Turning climate-related information into added value for traditional MEDiterranean Grape, OLive and Durum wheat food systems
- Role of Purveyors in Delivering Climate Services in the UK (REVEAL)
Professional memberships
- Leeds Met Office Strategic Research Group
- Priestley International Centre for Climate
- Centre for Climate Change Economics and Policy
Research groups and institutes
- Climate Change Adaptation, Vulnerability and Services
- Business Organisations for Sustainable Societies
- Sustainability Research Institute