Most debates that define the future of our society and our planet are opaque. In the case of the debates on adaptation to global environmental change (GEC), the cause of this opacity is twofold: the extreme technicality of the issues at stake and the multiplicity of scales and actors they imply. Despite its magnitude and urgency, the issue remains incomprehensible to most of the population. The reason is not, however, the lack of publicly available information. The UN Framework convention on Climate Change, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and many other national and international bodies release extensive documentation on the topic. Official negotiation documents, position papers, scientific reports, and pamphlets are all freely available on the Web in near real time. But as research on the media has shown, information overload does not necessarily foster better democracy. The proof is that the agenda of public opinion is still occupied by the issue of the anthropogenic origin of global warming, while this issue has for long now been a point of consensus both in scientific community and political negotiation. To contribute to understanding the challenges raised by adaptation, the exploratory and collaborative research project MEDEA (Mapping Environmental Debates on Adaptation) proposes a fourfold research programme based on the innovative methodology of controversy-mapping. Firstly, drawing on a close collaboration between climate experts and social scientists, it aims to collect an extensive corpus of both scientific and media discourses on GEC adaptation debate in France. Secondly, it aims at analysing such corpus using methods and tools developed in the field of Science and Technology Studies. Thirdly, drawing on media design expertise, it aims at developing an on-line interactive platform to make the debate legible to a large audience. Finally, the project will conclude by disseminating this platform to all relevant stakeholders in the debate. Overall, the project intends to provide an answer to the following question: What difference does it makes to be equipped with tools for mapping technoscientific debates? Can such equipment change (and potentially improve) the way we publicly discuss climate change adaptation? In line with the priority of the call for projects, the MEDEA intends to give the project an original approach combining quantitative and qualitative methods from social sciences (particularly, science and technology studies, sociology of public problems and media sociology), climate sciences and digital and communication design. To ensure such original disciplinary articulation, this research project engages the collaboration of three partners: Sciences Po (particularly its médialab and the IDDRI), the Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et l'Environnement, a CEA-CNRS-UVSQ mix research unit (UMR8212), and the ENSADlab de l’Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs. Given its extensive experience in controversy mapping, the Sciences Po médialab will ensure the management of the project, under the scientific coordination of Tommaso Venturini. While being innovative, the clear-cut strategy of MEDEA establishes a sound basis for an interdisciplinary research project, ensures that relevant answers to the challenges pointed in the project at the end of the three-year duration, and integrates dissemination activities. In this manner, the project will contribute to support policy development and public debate on adaptation and to provide a relevant contribution to the understanding of the processes underlying the GEC and its governance – which are core objectives of the CEP&S call for projects.