The CARRInstitute -- Components Defined

In order to take full advantage of the practice and research linkage and to move our effort to the next level, CARRI created the Community and Regional Resilience Institute in 2009. Establishment of this new Institute is an important step in furthering CARRI’s initial work in the Southeast and realizing the full potential of the expanding community practice and growing body of research. The new Institute has five divisions:

Community Resilience Practice
The Community Resilience Practice works directly with communities who desire to increase their resilience across all community domains using the CARRI process. In 2009 we will continue the community partnerships with our three original partner communities while reaching out to other regional partners and communities with tailored programs designed to launch them onto a resilience pathway. Additionally, CARRI will finalize a community implementation package that will provide the basic materials to enable a community to understand and take ownership of the CARRI process with ongoing Institute guidance and mentoring.

Community Resilience Research
Building on the research work already accomplished, the Community and Resilience Institute will become recognized in the area of resilience research as a center of community-based resilience study. We will act as a facilitator to promote linkages among the larger family of resilience centers in the nation in matters relating to communities. CARRI has had significant success in fully integrating its research efforts into the community practice as well as assembling an outstanding group of university, laboratory and independent scholars from across the US. The Institute will continue its publication of community-based research, academic papers and case studies to provide support to organizations and agencies working in the community resilience field. Additionally, we want to focus this year to identify the gaps in community resilience knowledge to be better able to provide advice on national research requirements. The Institute will also sponsor workshops and seminars to assemble those working in the area of community resilience and promote cooperation and collaboration on this nationally vital research area.

Community Resilience Certification
One of the basic ideas of CARRI from its beginning is that communities can benefit economically from resilience investments. We see community resilience certification as the means to that economic end. The community resilience certification division of the Institute will be charged with working with the widest possible set of stakeholders to fully develop a community resilience certification system that can address the complexity of community resilience in a real-world, practical manner that is widely accepted. This is clearly a challenging task but one that we see as critical to the success of the program and to creating many more resilient communities and ultimately a more resilient nation.

Community Resilience Policy
The Community and Regional Resilience Institute will be available to policy makers at the national, state and local level as a resource to inform policy. The knowledge gained from the community resilience practice and the research efforts provide practical information for policy makers that is grounded in community reality and bolstered by academic study. Through the publication of papers and by hosting and participating in workshops and seminars, CARRI will assist leaders at all levels as they work to make our nation’s communities more resilient.

Community Resilience Resources Repository
CARRI will continue to provide resources for those researchers who wish to work in the area of community resilience and to those communities that wish to become more resilient. Over the past year, CARRI published several research papers outlining the state of community resilience knowledge today. CARRI also has created a searchable resilience publications database and provides this service (updated quarterly) to researchers via its CARRI web site, http://www.resilientus.org/. In the coming months, the Institute will expand this repository to include additional research papers, lessons learned from our partner communities and community resilience case studies.

The leap from initiative to institute is a big one but one that we have been encouraged by many of our supporters to make as early as possible. Your comments and ideas will help us ensure success.