The overall objective of this Coordination and Support Action is to coordinate and support the development and the implementation plans of the Joint Programming Initiative ‘Connecting Climate Knowledge for Europe’ (JPI Climate). The CSA will serve as a tool integrated in JPI Climate to enable it to address the challenges of climate change. Hence, it will contribute to the EU objective of building the European Research Area through enhanced cooperation and coordination of national research programmes.The CSA will coordinate preparatory activities within JPI Climate and will support the capacity-building process, with the aim of shortening the time required to reach the implementation phase.This will be done by further developing the common strategic research agenda and by refining the mapping exercise. With regard to the implementation a general concept for JPI Climate as a whole will be developed with preparing a catalogue of possible joint activities, developing and revising implementation schemes.Another main task of the CSA will be developing of a network strategy and the establishment of JPI Climate as the leading European platform to align policies in the area of climate research. This includes the coordination and development of synergies with the existing research and innovation schemes in the EU.The development of a strategy how to engage with member states not yet involved in JPI Climate and involve international institutions outside of Europe will complement this task.Further, the adaptation of the Framework Conditions will be an important step towards the implementation of JPI Climate.An appropriate use of the research findings requires effective communication strategies (web-sites, conferences, brochures). Therefore, the development of an optimized dissemination strategy will be part of the CSA as well.