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This study aimed to investigate the impact of a university’s abrupt closure on the lives of graduate students and examined the role of grit, social support and school identification as they transferred to a new institution.

An online survey was administered to a diverse sample of 130 psychology graduate students after their university unexpectedly closed and the students transferred to another institution to complete their degrees. The survey included both qualitative and quantitative measures of the impact on different areas of their lives, anxiety and depression, life satisfaction, social support, grit and school identification.

Students reported experiencing financial loss, family and marital strain, anger, fear, uncertainty and loss of progress toward professional goals. Nearly 40% of participants had scores indicating elevated anxiety and depression. Students with higher anxiety and depression and lower life satisfaction tended to identify less with their new institution. Both social support and grit were related to better adjustment and life satisfaction.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to examine the impact on graduate students following the closure of an institution of higher education. The findings have implications for educational policy and graduate student support services.

Recognition that not every climate adaptation policy is a good one has shifted attention to new tools and methods to measure the adequacy and effectiveness of adaptation policies. This study aims to propose and apply and applies an innovative adaptation policy assessment framework to identify the extent to which climate adaptation policies in Vietnam exhibit conditions that are likely to ensure a sufficient, credible and effective adaptation.

In total, 21 conditions, categorized under five normative principles and covering critical issue areas in adaptation domain, form the climate adaptation policy assessment framework. The principles were double-checked and tested in case studies through observations and analyses of policy documents to ensure that each condition should be distinct and not overlapping across principles. To see if the principles and attendant conditions were able to capture all relevant aspects of adaptation, the authors used structured expert judgment. In total, 39 policy documents pertaining to climate change adaptation were selected for qualitative document analysis. In-depth interviews with local officials and experts were conducted to address data gaps.

The study reveals major weaknesses constituting a reasonably worrisome picture of the adaptation policies in Vietnam since several critical conditions were underrepresented. These results shed new light on why some adaptation policies falter or are posing adverse impacts. The findings suggest that a sound policy assessment framework can provide evidence on what effective adaptation policy looks like and how it can be enabled. The framework for climate adaptation policy assessment in this study can be easily adjusted and used for different socio-environmental contexts in which new conditions for policy assessment might emerge.

The findings show underlying weaknesses constituting a reasonably worrisome picture of the adaptation regime in Vietnam. In the absence of mechanisms and measures for accountability and transparency in policy processes, adaptation in Vietnam appears more likely to be prone to maladaptation and corruption. While solving these problems will not be easy for Vietnam, the government needs to evaluate whether the short-term gains in sustaining the existing adaptation policies really make progress and serve its long-term climate-adaptive development goals.

Although interpretations of adaptation effectiveness may be very divergent in different normative views on adaptation outcomes, the authors argue that a common, agreed-upon effectiveness can be reached if it is clearly defined and measurable in adaptation policies. Thus, the climate adaptation policy assessment framework proposed in this study is critical for policymakers, practitioners, donors and stakeholders dealing with adaptation to better understand the weaknesses in policymaking processes, pinpoint priority areas of action and timely prevent or prepare for possible adverse impacts of policies.