CONCERTO was presented during the kick-off meeting of FUTURA, held between 23-25 September 2026 in Milan, Italy. The three-day meeting brought together 40 partners working across climate science, modelling, infrastructure, policy and communication to launch FUTURA’s four-year programme and establish the foundations for a more integrated approach to developing and using climate pathways.

The connection between the two projects is particularly relevant as both are coordinated by the Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change (CMCC), while CONCERTO’s Project Manager, Sara Totaro, is also part of FUTURA. This shared coordination context provided an opportunity to present CONCERTO to the FUTURA consortium and highlight areas of complementarity between the two Horizon Europe projects.

CONCERTO focuses on improving the representation of the terrestrial carbon cycle by bringing together Earth observation, process-based modelling and advanced data assimilation approaches. By combining information from different sources and developing improved multi-scale modelling approaches, the project aims to reduce uncertainties in the representation of terrestrial carbon processes and strengthen the scientific basis for understanding how terrestrial ecosystems interact with the climate system.

FUTURA takes a broader perspective on the development and use of climate pathways. The project aims to connect societal choices and emissions scenarios with global climate responses, regional changes and impacts on people and nature. By bringing together integrated assessment models, Earth system models, regional models, impact models and emulators, FUTURA will work towards a more coordinated system for generating, connecting and accessing information about possible climate futures.

The two projects share an interest in improving the way complex scientific information can support decision-making. While CONCERTO concentrates on terrestrial carbon-cycle knowledge, including observations and modelling of ecosystem processes, FUTURA aims to connect a broader range of climate evidence and make it more responsive and accessible to policymakers and other users.

For CONCERTO, participation in the meeting provided an opportunity to increase the project’s visibility within a wider European climate research context and to present its objectives and approach to a consortium working on related challenges from a broader perspective. It also highlighted the value of coordination and exchange between projects addressing different elements of the climate system and the evidence needed to understand its future development.