Climate And Displacement Research Ensemble

The Climate And Displacement Research Ensemble (CADRE) is an interdisciplinary working group at University College Dublin. Estimates of climate displacement vary a lot, because there is not much validation. CADRE works the other way round and validates first, in EU countries where the data exists.

CADRE is a UCD Earth Institute Strategic Priority for 2026–27. Ten researchers across five UCD Schools bring together political science and computational social science, computer science, statistics, public health, and humanitarian action, with faculty, fellows, and postgraduate students at MSc and PhD level. I lead the group, which is scoping a research agenda on the measurement of climate displacement and laying the groundwork for a larger externally funded program.

Working Group Strands

Computational social science and political science
Scoping how climate displacement is currently measured, mapping existing approaches, definitions, and gaps.
Data and measurement feasibility
Assessing the data ecosystem (availability, quality, access, and interoperability of candidate data sources) that any future measurement agenda would require.
Statistical methodology and measurement modeling
Scoping approaches to estimation, uncertainty quantification, and model-based and spatial methods for displacement measurement.
Public health
Scoping the health dimensions of climate displacement and how measurement frameworks can capture health outcomes and population vulnerabilities.
Humanitarian action and climate migration
Scoping the humanitarian and policy applications of displacement measurement and identifying its end users in agencies, NGOs, and government.

Team

Elisa D’Amico (lead)
Ad Astra Assistant Professor, School of Politics and International Relations (SPIRe)
Chloé ten Brink
PhD Candidate, UCD Centre for Humanitarian Action
Sara Dada
Ad Astra Fellow, School of Nursing, Midwifery and Health Systems
Michael Fop
Assistant Professor in Statistics, School of Mathematics and Statistics
Isabella Gollini
Assistant Professor in Statistics, School of Mathematics and Statistics
Madhusanka Liyanage
Professor and Ad Astra Fellow, School of Computer Science
Ronan McDermott
Earth Institute Climate Fellow, UCD Centre for Humanitarian Action
Ravi Rastogi
MSc Student, Information Systems, School of Computer Science
Ranul Thantilage
Assistant Professor, School of Computer Science
Manuel Saviane
Undergraduate Student, Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE)

Planned Outputs

The working group meets monthly from October 2026 to September 2027. Over that period the group plans to produce the following.

A technical scoping report on data availability and measurement feasibility
A position paper synthesizing the five strands
A student outreach event
A final stakeholder workshop

Get Involved

The group wants to grow, and anyone curious is welcome, whatever their field.