ARISE: Advancing Resilience and Innovation for a Sustainable Environment

ARISE Partnership and Outcomes

ARISE is an inclusive collaboration among local, regional, and national authorities, coastal residents, heritage groups, and people who care about UK coasts; experts in policy analysis, cultural engagement, creative practice, health sciences, biological sciences, computer science, pollution management, disaster studies, environmental sciences, economics, and geography.

The project team is led by Professor Gina Yannitell Reinhardt, Department of Government, University of Essex, and comprises  investigators from across Eastern Arc Universities and beyond (Aberystwyth, Birkbeck, East Anglia, Essex, Kent, Manchester, and Suffolk) and other regional partner organisations including the Centre for Environment Fisheries and Aquaculture Science and Estuary Festival.

The ARISE team will design and deliver twelve place-based policy interventions throughout the Norfolk-to-Kent coastlines, including education campaigns, enforcement initiatives, and community engagement events. Multiple dimensions of resilience, such as individual and community health and wellbeing, knowledge and behaviours, policy and personal networks, and heritage and feelings about one’s place and environment, will be assessed before, during and after the interventions take place.

The team, together with community members, will evaluate lessons learned to develop a toolkit of best practice advising practitioners and policy makers how to achieve transferable and scalable interventions that build sustainable resilience across communities and places.

The team also aims to offer insights and recommendations regarding challenges and opportunities that come with engaging in transdisciplinary work which requires participation from people who are both willing to compromise and capable of seeing the value of other expertise.

The development of the ARISE framework, methods, and toolkit for intervention will follow strong participatory principles, with continuous opportunity for refinement by an ARISE Community of Practice.  The Community of Practice will consist of a group of individuals and organisations interested in building coastal community resilience and participatory avenues for themselves and others eager to contribute to continuous refinement of ARISE work and outputs during and beyond project timescale and geographies.

As such, ARISE Initiative is well-set to create practical, evidence-based guidance for interventions that can be applied across eastern coasts of England, to the rest of the UK, and beyond.

ARISE Funding

ARISE is funded as part of the £14.8m Resilient Coastal Communities and Seas Programme (Coast-R Network). The Programme is jointly funded by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra). It is part of UKRI’s Creating Opportunities and Improving Outcomes strategic theme, and is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC).

ESRC is investing £9.5m in five projects that will research place-based approaches to an environmentally sustainable future, providing evidence to support local and national decision making, one of which is the ARISE Initiative. Defra is providing funding through its Natural Capital and Ecosystem Assessment (NCEA) programme.