The project recognizes major climate change threats to managing the stability, resilience and development of urban society and systems. Effective societal responses are severely hampered by gaps in understanding the systemic connectedness and contextual dependencies in developing effective responses, and the transdisciplinary nature of the climate threat. The project is a response to the Presidential Climate Commission’s (PCC) challenge for a just transition in South Africa society. The focus is on building sustainable collaboration as peer partners across and between universities and cities. Through this EISH 2.0 aims to explore how we can better build context-relevant and actionable climate change information aligned with the realities of urban management at the nexus of climate change, water and waste in South African cities.