About
Research Charter
The principles that guide Climpact — open access, scientific independence and interdisciplinary rigour.
Our commitment to rigorous, responsible and impactful research
The Climpact Research Charter is the foundational document that defines how we conduct research, manage data, engage with stakeholders and ensure our work aligns with the highest standards of scientific integrity and environmental responsibility . It serves as both a public commitment to the climate litigation community and an operational framework guiding every aspect of our four-year project. The Charter is currently undergoing formal adoption and will be published shortly .
A framework for responsible research
- Environmental responsibility in practice — The Charter sets out how the project monitors its environmental footprint, promotes low-carbon research practices, ensures digital infrastructure minimizes energy consumption, and applies Do No Significant Harm (DNSH) principles to project activities.
- Global South and intersectional perspectives — A commitment to incorporating Global South and intersectional perspectives into the research, so that Climpact’s account of climate litigation reflects the diversity of jurisdictions, communities and experiences it studies.
- Data protection and open science — Compliance with GDPR and recognised data-protection standards, sensitive-information safeguards, and open-science commitments — releasing data, instruments and outputs so that scholars, practitioners and citizens can use them without barriers.
- Stakeholder engagement with integrity — Principles for engaging with litigants, practitioners, policymakers, corporate actors and civil society organizations — preserving independence, managing conflicts of interest and ensuring respectful, transparent dialogue.
- Aligning with climate action frameworks — Alignment with international climate action frameworks, so that Climpact’s research not only studies the legal mechanisms designed to address the climate crisis but is itself conducted in a manner consistent with climate responsibility.
- Rigorous interdisciplinary collaboration — A standard for genuine integration of legal, social-scientific and economic expertise — interdisciplinarity by design, with shared analytical tools, synchronized coding and reconciled findings rather than parallel, siloed analyses.
- Responsible use of AI — Guidelines for the responsible use of artificial intelligence in research workflows — covering the role of computational tools in text analysis, coding support and database operations, with appropriate human oversight and transparency about their use.
A public commitment and an operational framework
The Charter reflects our understanding that research on climate litigation carries particular responsibilities . We examine legal mechanisms designed to address one of humanity’s most urgent challenges, and we approach this work with deep awareness of its ethical implications, environmental footprint, and potential real-world consequences . The Charter will be published on the public site once formal adoption is complete.