Climate Safety & Security centre (CaSS)
Climate change limits secure access to food, water, energy, and materials, eroding our environment's liveability. As such, the changing climate threatens human security, increasing the risk of social tensions and instability regionally, nationally, and internationally. Therefore, climate security has taken centre stage in policymaking and academic debates. The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) considers climate security as “the impacts of the climate crisis on peace and security, [that] can trigger competition over natural resources, insecure livelihoods, and mass displacement”.
Key concerns are related to a steady and reliable supply of food, water, energy and materials as well as loss of livelihoods and forced migration and displacements. While these fields are inherently connected to designing and engineering climate-secure infrastructure systems, the discussions on climate security are predominantly taking place in political science, international relations, military studies, etc. A systematic focus on climate security from an engineering perspective is missing.
Engineering perspective
How can we promote human security while preserving fundamental human rights, ensure access to our basic needs - water and food security - and to our crucial commodities for mitigating climate change - energy and materials security?
TU Delft’s Climate Safety & Security centre (CaSS) addresses these critical questions from an engineering perspective. The research centre focuses on designing technical strategies and creating innovative solutions with a systemic approach. These innovations are developed with key public values in mind, such as safety, security, sustainability and vulnerability..
Our research is positioned at the nexus of climate change, vulnerabilities and instability in the liveable environment, and secure supply (chains) of essential resources: water, food, energy, and materials. We further aim to account for the cascading effects of climate change as well as the new safety and security challenges that transition along with the proposed technical solutions will bring about.
Transdisciplinary approach
At our transdisciplinary research centre, we fuse interdisciplinary expertise with active engagement from citizens and policy partners. Our dedicated teams of researchers from TU Delft work hand in hand with policymakers and practitioners to set ambitious goals and tackle pressing challenges across our five Flagships: Human Security & Liveable Environment, Water Security, Food Security, Energy Security and Materials Security.
Nestled in the vibrant heart of The Hague, our research centre is strategically located where policy is shaped and international relations thrive. This prime location allows us to connect with key regional, national, and global policy stakeholders, enhancing our impact and outreach.
Established in 2023, our centre rapidly expands its activities, creating a hub for transdisciplinary research that brings together scholars, scientists, engineers, policymakers, citizens, and industry leaders. Once fully operational, we will host approximately 30 researchers from a diverse array of engineering and design disciplines that TU Delft represents, including Mechanical and Civil Engineering, Material Science, Architecture, Physics, Chemistry and Technology, Policy & Management.
Research
Our team
Management Team
| Behnam Taebi | Scientific director, Professor Energy & Climate Ethics |
| Tina Comes | Academic lead HS&LE, Professor Decision Theory & ICT |
| Marjolein van Esch | Academic lead HS&LE, Assistant professor Environmental Technology & Design |
| Edo Abraham | Academic Lead Water Security, Associate Professor Water & Control Systems Engineering |
| Lotte Asveld | Academic lead Food Security, Associate Professor Ethics & Biotechnology |
| Joris Dik | Academic lead Materials, Professor Materials Science & Engineering |
| Alex Stefanov | Academic lead Energy, Assistant Professor Intelligent Electrical Power Grids |
| Femke Vossepoel | Academic lead Data and Modeling, Professor Earth System Simulation |
| Jennifer Kockx | Program manager |
CaSS Reseachers
| Jasper Verschuur | Assistant professor Engineering Systems & Climate Security (HS&LE) |
| Kevin Rossi | Assistant professor Material Science Engineering (Materials Security) |
| Marijn Roelvink | PhD student (HS&LE) |
| Sherya Deep Bansod | PhD student (HS&LE) |
| Gabriel Sher | Researcher (HS&LE) |
Flagships
Human Security & Liveable Environment
The Human Security and Liveable Environment Flagship brings the four critical resource Flagships (water, food, energy and materials security) together. We take an integrated approach that considers the climate safety and security implications of the provision of critical resource flows, and the engineering solutions required to achieve tolerable levels of human safety and security for all.
We work on innovative engineering approaches that enable decisionmakers to analyse, model and monitor the links between climate change and the safety and security implications of critical resource provision on three interconnected scales: global, national and local.
Water Security
The Water Security Flagship focuses on the ensuring the sufficient availability of water of sufficient quality within the framework of a liveable environment. The flagship aims to incentivize system thinking about (multilevel/transnational) governance of water security for domestic use, industry and agriculture, including options for re-use of wastewater, while addressing the nexus of water, energy,food and health (human + planetary). We need to ensure just and safe access to water and sanitation as well as spatio-temporal availability and protection from extremes and trade-offs between different water-related risks (e.g., impact of flood protection strategies on water availability in times of drought and water quality).
Food Security
The Food Security Flagship focuses on how we can sustainably feed people across the globe. As the world’s population continues to grow, so does the demand for food. Yet food systems are vulnerable, particularly due to climate change, urbanisation, and their pressure on natural ecosystems, including freshwater consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. The protein transition takes centre stage in designing new sustainable and equitable food systems. As innovations, ranging from cultured meat to precision fermentation, emerge, we need to develop, design and apply novel approaches to assess their impact. This includes not only the emissions of new technologies, but also their social and techno-economic impact, as well as their uptake by society.
Energy Security
Decarbonizing our society leads to massive changes in the energy sector. The future electricity system must be flexible, inclusive, digital, distributed, agile, and renewable, while the levels of reliability, safety, and affordability must be maintained if not improved, since also transport, heating, and industry will soon depend on this societal backbone.
The scientific foundation of designing and operating the electricity system also changes. New and unsolved phenomena such as swarm behaviour of smart power prosumers (consumers and producers) render existing, centralized, white-box methods for planning and operations inefficient. The Flagship Energy Security provides a scientific leap towards power grid self-organization.
Materials Security
The Materials Security Flagship focuses on materials engineering that is based on the concept of multiscale circularity, where every stage of the materials life is optimized, while also ensuring continuity of materials flows. We break this down into three focal points:
Green production: methods and policies to minimise energy, resource demands and environmental impact of large-scale materials production, from green steels and metals to biobased plastics.
Responsible life cycles: engineering low footprint, application-tailored, and high-performance materials with longer lifetimes and safer operation.
Productive End-of-life: bringing critical elements and materials back into circulation with maximal efficiency and minimal environmental impact.