Climate change has led to an increasing demand from society on the climate research community for process understanding, improved scenarios, reduced uncertainties, and more reliable data for mitigation and impact studies. This requires a new generation of researchers that have strong in-depth knowledge in their specific parts of the climate system, but at the same time are equipped with a broader knowledge to comprehend the overall picture in the coupled Earth System. The Norwegian Research School on Changing Climates in the coupled Earth System (CHESS) is a direct response to this demand.