Connecting research and education institutions with private sector disaster risk reduction efforts.
Higher Education Partnerships (HEP) seeks to leverage data gathering and assessment and educational resources for improvements in community resilience and disaster risk reduction.
Associate Professor in the School of Public Affairs, Arizona State University.
Gather and assess data for evidence-based management of hazards and risk.
Educate policymakers and the public about resilience opportunities in the face of disaster risk.
Produce applied project work relevant to whole community strategies on promoting disaster resilience.
Provide a basis for establishing cross sector partnerships with key private and public organizations.
One of our university partners, Baylor University's Collaborative on Hunger and Poverty (UNDRR and FAO), has produced the Food System Resilience scorecard, which helps to systematically unpack the requirements of the "Ten Essentials for Making Cities Resilient" and how they relate to food system resilience. This ensures holistic coverage of the disaster resilience field, including factors indirectly influencing food systems. The method is translatable to different settings due to the granularity used to identify, rank and prioritize areas needing improvement to strengthen food system resilience. This scorecard is suitable for private, not-for-profit and government agencies at local, provincial and national levels involved in food systems and disaster risk reduction.
Resilience standards, meaning technical guidance for organizational processes or regulatory practices, are central to net gains in community resilience. However, the need to understand patterns in adoption, scope of use, cost effectiveness and potential efficacy are all a key part of improvements in resilience practice. This project addresses knowledge gaps in this area by cataloguing and assessing resilience standards adopted across a broad range of industries.
In the summer of 2022 a global survey of municipalities was completed in support of the creation of an Action Guide serving as a companion to the UNDRR Disaster Resilience Scorecard for Cities. That effort is being expanded to a broader and more systematic review of hazards governance practices, especially at the subnational level.
We are looking for robust university partners to contribute to the types of projects mentioned above, and a range of new projects being contemplated. Becoming a partner entails a willingness to contribute expertise and to collaborate with a range of key stakeholders.
Projects and activities undertaken by HEP at ARISE-US offer access to subject matter expertise and unique data collection opportunities. Likewise, engagement in ARISE-US projects also presents teaching and learning opportunities for universities and their relevant degree programs.
There are no fees to join. ARISE-US members contribute their time, knowledge and experience.