REACH Center Developmental Core

PROJECT SUMMARY - DEVELOPMENTAL CORE The Developmental Core aims to provide pilot funding, networking, and educational and training opportunities to develop a multidisciplinary, community-engaged climate and health research workforce. The Core integrates and cross-pollinates climate change research with public health research by distributing $80,000 annually

through a REACH Pilot Awards Program and sparking multi-disciplinary collaborations through a Student Research Fellowship program. For the Pilot Awards, the Core will ensure a strong applicant pool, soliciting innovative and significant proposals, implementing a competitive application review process, and engaging

pilot awardees in Center activities. The Student Research Fellowships will engage students from all three academic institutional partners to work as a collaborative cohort on a project that addresses a non-academic partner need and leverages big data to advance health-protective and equitable climate solutions. The

Developmental Core will also provide educational and networking activities that catalyze multidisciplinary and cross-institutional collaboration in research on climate and health. The Core will offer educational activities, including a journal club, workshops to promote improved team science, and trainings on geospatial datasets to

build an informed climate and health research workforce. The Core will also implement cross-institutional networking activities including Annual Research Days, research seminars, a Climate and Health Connections lunch series, scientific working groups focusing on shared interests among Center investigators, and

expanding clinical engagement and clinical research. It will foster a strong existing interdisciplinary network and emerging collaborations in climate-health research grants linking several Center investigators. Finally, the Developmental Core will ensure that climate and health research is responsive to topics arising from

government and community stakeholders, collaborating closely with the Community Engagement Core. This will be accomplished by engaging government and community partners in Pilot Awards and by co-sponsoring workshops with the Community Engagement Core to facilitate improved knowledge-to-action and community-

engaged research. The Developmental Core will deliver innovative approaches throughout the research design and implementation phases by prioritizing community engagement and solution-oriented goals throughout all of its research and educational activities. The ultimate goal is for REACH research projects to be co-generated by

community and policy stakeholders in partnership with Center investigators, thereby ensuring that the research and its results are actionable and lead towards solutions to protect health from the hazards posed by climate change.