The Consortium for Resilient Gulf Communities (CRGC) is led by the RAND Gulf StatesPolicy Institute in partnership with researchers at the Department of Sociology at Louisiana State University (LSU), the Disaster Resilience Leadership Academy and Department of Computer Science at Tulane University, the Coastal Resource and Resilience Center at the University of South Alabama (USA), and Louisiana Public Health Institute (LPHI). Team members represent multiple disciplines, including public health, psychiatry, psychology, sociology, economics, political science, implementation science, computer science, risk analysis, disaster resilience, ecology, decision science, and program evaluation. A complex systems approach to resilience-based programming requires this transdisciplinary approach.
The RAND Corporation is a nonprofit, nonpartisan institution that helps to improve policy and decision making through research and analysis. In 2005, RAND created the Gulf States Policy Institute in New Orleans LA and Jackson MS to help address questions related to a wide range of issues that include coastal protection and restoration, health care, and workforce development. RAND brings extensive experience in managing large, multi-institutional collaborations that require significant institutional support for efficient operations. RAND provides strong research support services, including an information infrastructure that facilitates work across multiple locations, highly sophisticated computing software and hardware systems, an extensive data collection facility, a state-of-the art publications department, schedule management and financial systems for tracking projects, and professional advisory groups that contribute statistical, survey, and communications support to projects.
Louisiana State University (LSU) is Louisiana's Flagship University and is designated as a Land-, Sea-, and Space-Grant Institution. LSU's research enterprise encompasses every aspect of a major research university with a Carnegie Classification of Research Active/Very High, and therefore possesses all of the facilities and support infrastructure consistent with that elite distinction, including computing, internet, communications, and laboratory resources. Coastal studies are at the core of LSU's research mission.
Tulane University is a private institution with a Carnegie Classification of Very High Research Activity, with concomitant facilities and technologies. The Disaster Resilience Leadership Academy is an interdisciplinary academic center with participating faculty from Tulane's School of Architecture, A.B. Freeman School of Business, School of Law, School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, and School of Social Work.
Louisiana Public Health Institute (LPHI) is an independent, statewide 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization established in 1997. The Institute collaborates with a broad array of partners to design, implement and evaluate complex programs to address the broad determinants of health and improve population health, including clinical health services, primary prevention, community and organizational capacity building, and policy solutions. Facilities and support infrastructure includes office and conference space, computers, high-speed internet access, teleconferencing, financial and administrative services, etc.
University of South Alabama (USA), is a four-year public university with a Carnegie Classification of Research Active/High, and associated facilities and equipment for ensuring proper management of research funds. The Coastal Resource and Resiliency Center (CRRC) was established in 2012 as part of the Gulf Region Health Outreach Program. The CRRC trains Community Health Workers for under-served populations along the Gulf Coast (Alabama, Mississippi, Florida, and Louisiana) who are dependent on the Gulf's resources.