Recently, a growing trend in development and implementation of local climate change adaptation policies has been evident in several Indonesian cities. Some city governments have equipped themselves with climate change strategies, especially those which have maintained a substantial collaboration with international non- government organisations (NGOs) and aid agencies. These agencies invested a considerable amount of research on facts and evidence about climate change and its consequences at the city level. Equally importantly, learning mechanisms have been advocated to facilitate the transfer of knowledge. This phenomenon provides a promising setting for theoretical discourse about the emergence of climate adaptation policy at the city level and an opportunity to better understand the complex relationship between the roles of research (production of facts and evidence), learning (transfer of knowledge), and policy development (values and moral judgment). The aim of this PhD project is to contribute to providing a more accurate explanation of the emergence of climate adaptation policies at the city level. Two main research questions will be addressed in this study: (1) What is the process of the development of climate adaptation policies at the city level? (2) Do policy research and learning mechanisms really matter when the city governments make decisions leading to climate adaptation policies?