The Premise
In 2024, floods swept through southern Poland, Lower Silesia, and Moravia. Entire towns submerged. People climbed onto rooftops and waited.
The same year, wildfires burned from the Peloponnese to the Alentejo. Farmers in the Ebro basin watched reservoirs drop to levels not seen in living memory. Vineyards in Burgundy and Tokaj harvested weeks earlier than their grandparents ever did. Olive groves in Andalucía and Puglia withered.
Meanwhile, permafrost thaw destabilises Nordic infrastructure. Rising seas threaten the Low Countries. Soil degradation quietly destroys the agricultural foundation that feeds the continent.
This is not a single crisis.
It is many crises, arriving simultaneously, playing out differently in every region – from Fajã Grande in the Azores to Nuorgam in Finnish Lapland, from La Restinga in the Canary Islands to Cape Greco in Cyprus. That is the true scope of Europe. That is the scope of this work.
Climate adaptation is global. Solutions are regional. Water scarcity in the Douro Valley differs from flooding in the Oder basin. Heatwave protocols for Nicosia differ from those for Warsaw. Wildfire management in Catalonia demands different approaches than coastal erosion in Schleswig-Holstein.
Who We Are
Impact Brussels advances resilience across Europe at the food-water-climate-health nexus – where the most consequential challenges collide and compound.
We leverage biotech, healthtech, and circular innovation to transform scientific expertise into actionable solutions. We build coalitions that bridge laboratory breakthroughs and real-world deployment, supporting the full journey from validation to commercial adoption.
Our 2026-2027 ambitions are concrete:
* 100 new ventures strengthening societal resilience
* 30 consortia bringing market-ready innovation to deployment
* €30 million deployed towards measurable societal benefits
* 100 organisations trained to deliver impactful solutions
We need advisors who understand that climate risk is granular – shaped by geography, hydrology, soil, governance, and history. Who can see around corners. And who care enough to do it without a paycheque.
The Role
This is a Strategic Advisory Board Member position. Not ceremonial. Not a title for your LinkedIn. A working role for someone who wants to shape how European regions respond to the climate emergency.
You will provide strategic advice on climate adaptation within the food-water-climate-health nexus. You will support initiative design, contribute to coalition development, and assist in fundraising, marketing, and strategic activities – not as an operational manager, but as a senior voice who opens doors, sharpens thinking, and lends credibility.
Your time commitment is approximately 3-4 days per quarter for advisory sessions. Ad-hoc consultations when stakes are high. Occasional representation at EU forums where your voice can shift conversations.
Outstanding board members may be invited to join our Foresight Council – a smaller circle convened for the hardest strategic questions. This is not guaranteed. It is earned.
What You Will Actually Do
Anticipate. Scan the horizon for emerging risks, policy shifts, and technological inflection points – not just floods, fires, and heatwaves, but slower emergencies: soil degradation, aquifer depletion, shifting disease vectors, food system vulnerabilities, water-health linkages, biodiversity collapse, cascading failures when multiple stresses converge.
Convene. Unite stakeholders who rarely sit together: policymakers and regional authorities from Gran Canaria to Larnaca, from the Azores to Lapland; agricultural cooperatives; climate-tech founders; water authorities managing transboundary resources; health systems grappling with environmental change; investors; frontline communities.
Challenge. Push back on comfortable assumptions. Ask whether our metrics measure what matters. Remind us that solutions designed in well-funded Western European labs may fail in regions with different soils, water tables, institutional capacities, and histories.
Support resource mobilisation. Contribute expertise on positioning initiatives, pursuing funding mechanisms, and building sustainable financial foundations.
Amplify. Lend credibility and network to ensure impactful solutions reach policymakers, investors, and the regions that need them most.
Champion equity. Centre the communities most exposed – flood-prone villages along the Vistula, drought-stressed farms in Castile, heat-vulnerable elderly in Sofia, island communities facing water scarcity. Climate justice is a design constraint.
This Is NOT for You If
* You prefer consensus to candour
* You have not led anything through genuine adversity – we want to know what you did when funding collapsed or coalitions fractured
* You think "strategic" means "abstract"
* You are uncomfortable with ambiguity
* You want recognition without contribution
* You cannot name a time you changed your mind about something important
* You see climate adaptation as purely technical – it is also about trust, behaviour, health, and justice
* You have no interest in the commercial and financial dimensions of scaling impact
Signals of Excellence We Screen For
* A demonstrated "deep spike." Generalist who has navigated multiple sectors, but possesses one domain of unmistakable world-class expertise – perhaps rebuilding agricultural systems after drought, leading flood recovery, designing water management that worked, or structuring financing that made adaptation sustainable.
* Pan-European perspective. You understand Europe stretches from the Canary Islands to Lapland, from the Azores to Cyprus. You have worked where climate impacts hit hardest and resources are thinnest.
* Nexus thinking. You see how food, water, climate, and health interconnect – how drought affects nutrition, rivers, public health, and livelihoods simultaneously.
* Cross-cultural trust-building. You have earned credibility with sceptical stakeholders across languages, sectors, and divides.
* Systems fluency. You think in feedback loops and second-order effects. You understand why interventions in one basin create problems downstream.
* Execution under pressure. You have delivered results when conditions were hostile and resources scarce – in the field, not just in reports.
Non-Negotiable Requirements
* Emotional intelligence. You build trust quickly, read rooms accurately, deliver difficult feedback without damaging relationships, and listen more than lecture.
* Social intelligence. You understand how coalitions form and fracture, navigate status dynamics, and work effectively across cultures and power differentials.
* Adversity intelligence. You have been tested by crisis, institutional resistance, or personal setback – and emerged with integrity intact. We will ask directly.
Additional Requirements
* Demonstrated leadership in climate adaptation, water management, soil health, sustainable agriculture, food systems, or adjacent fields
* Finance and fundraising literacy – ability to contribute to resource mobilisation strategy
* Innovation capabilities to assess trends and innovations with rigour
* Market and community sensibility to support credible dissemination
* Fluency with EU frameworks – Horizon Europe, Green Deal, Mission Adaptation
* Network and convening power across European climate resilience
* Commitment to equity and inclusion
* EU-based or able to travel; fluent English; additional EU languages a bonus
Benefits
Global influence: Shape initiatives strengthening climate resilience from Atlantic archipelagos to eastern Mediterranean. Your name in our communications and public materials.
Extraordinary peer network: Board members, EU officials, research leaders, climate innovators, investors working at the food-water-climate-health nexus.
Thought leadership platforms: Speaking engagements, co-authorship opportunities, media visibility.
Insider access: See Horizon Europe consortia and emerging solutions before they reach mainstream.
The cherry on the cake: Outstanding members may be invited to join our Foresight Council. Membership is earned through contribution.
Partner-perk ideas (to confirm):
* Priority access to events and closed-door briefings
* Annual strategy retreat invitation
* Opportunity to co-design pilot initiatives
* Recognition in EU project deliverables
How to Apply
Submit to: hello@impact.brussels Attention: Lucy Lambert Subject line: "Advisory Board Application – Climate Adaptation"
One-Page Statement (maximum one page, no exceptions). Structure your statement around three questions:
* WHY: Why this role? What draws you to our food-water-climate-health nexus focus and coalition-building approach? Why contribute pro bono?
* WHAT: What specific value will you bring? Open doors to funders? Challenge assumptions on market pathways? Connect us to unreachable stakeholders? Sharpen analytical frameworks?
* HOW: What is your approach to advising? How do you build trust with teams you do not manage? How do you challenge without alienating?
Plus: LinkedIn profile link
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
Europe's strength lies in its diversity – of landscapes, languages, histories, and minds. We are building an advisory board that reflects this richness.
We welcome applications from across the full spectrum of European talent and experience. This explicitly includes women, people of colour, LGBTQ+ individuals, people with disabilities, neurodivergent thinkers, and those from Central, Eastern, and Southern Europe. Different minds see different patterns. Different backgrounds ask different questions. That is precisely what complex challenges require.
If your path to this role is unconventional, tell us. Unconventional paths often produce the most original thinking. We are interested in what you can do and how you think, not where you started or which boxes you tick.