Professor Bergtold leads listening session for ARISE in Finney County Kansas

Purpose

With extreme weather events on the rise, a team of Kansas scientists aims to bolster resilience across the state. But rather than looking for answers just in the lab—the ARISE research team co-creates solutions with Kansas communities.

Learn more

people seated at tables

Community Studios

We organize community studios to spark conversations between researchers and residents to learn about infrastructure resilience and social equity. The studios are designed to be collaborative, benefitting both the communities and the researchers, leading to community-centered insights. Learn more

Summaries of recent studios:

Dodge City
Garden City
Johnson County
Liberal
Wyandotte County

Two researchers in KC conducting a survey

Surveys

Our team designed a 34-question survey to better understand how households and businesses experience infrastructure services during storm events and how folks are preparing for future hazard events.

A first wave of surveys went out digitally statewide last spring. They were also handed out at local events and mailed to 10,000 households and businesses in five counties. The results will be combined with other data to produce a one-of-a-kind decision-support tool that can enhance disaster resilience in Kansas.

More details coming soon

Partners

We are proud to partner with residents in five Kansas counties: Ford, Finney, Johnson, Seward, and Wyandotte. These counties represent a wide range of geographic and socio-economic experiences in the state.

To better engage with local communities, we recently connected with a University of Kansas Medical School program called Communities Organizing to Promote Social Equity (COPE) and the Local Health Equity Action (L-HEAT) teams.

Kansas state map showing partner locations

Training

Training in community engaged research (CEnR) is required for the entire ARISE team. While not every researcher interacts directly with community partners, we believe that building the skills to do this type of work is critical for Kansas scientists and engineers. 

Tracking

We use an online evaluation system called the Community Check Box  to track ARISE activities with Kansas communities.

Access for researchers: www.myctb.org, requires login

Contact

Contact Alej Martinez
Program Coordinator for Community Engagement
alej@ku.edu
785.864.9041