Facilitate

The Global Disaster Preparedness Center (GDPC), established by the American Red Cross and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, supports innovation, learning, and community-centered disaster preparedness across the global Red Cross and Red Crescent network. GDPC serves as an international reference center focused on strengthening preparedness capacity, sharing practical tools, and helping communities reduce disaster risk before crises occur.

UCDRN’s relationship with GDPC and American Red Cross leadership has been foundational to the network’s development. Through advisory leadership, strategic partnership-building, and shared interest in applied disaster resilience, GDPC has helped UCDRN connect UC research capacity with humanitarian practice, public education, and global preparedness priorities.

International Science ReserveThe International Science Reserve (ISR) is a network of open scientific communities of discovery, bringing together specialized resources from across the globe to prepare for and help mitigate complex and urgent global crises. The ISR and UCDRN are developing several partnership opportunities.

UC Nature, formerly the UC Natural Reserve System, is the University of California’s statewide network of protected natural areas and field stations, supporting research, education, conservation, and public service across California’s diverse ecosystems. Today, UC Nature includes 42 reserves and field stations and provides unparalleled living laboratories for environmental monitoring, field-based teaching, and stewardship.

UCDRN has built a long-standing collaborative relationship with UC Nature, including wildfire resilience research supported by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation that helped leverage more than $2 million for atmospheric modeling, environmental monitoring, and experimental burning. Looking ahead, UCDRN and UC Nature are exploring expanded collaboration around Sentinel Sites for Nature, a statewide effort to establish long-term biodiversity and climate monitoring sites that can inform conservation, climate adaptation, and disaster resilience planning.

UCDRN has developed a multi-year collaboration with EY through the EY AI & Data Challenge, a global open-science competition that invites students and professionals to apply data science, artificial intelligence, and geospatial analysis to urgent societal challenges. UCDRN has served as an advisory and judging partner, helping shape challenge design, evaluate submissions, and connect EY’s global innovation platform with University of California expertise.

That relationship has continued to deepen. In recent planning with EY leadership, UCDRN has helped advance ideas for future challenge themes, including compounding disasters, complex risk, UC campus engagement, student leadership, regional awards, and next-generation approaches to AI for Good. The partnership now points toward a broader trajectory: using global challenge models to connect young talent, open data, applied science, and disaster resilience.

ORA Organic is connected to UCDRN through a long-standing founder-to-founder relationship rooted in public service. ORA founder Will Smelko and UCDRN founder Nico Pascal previously co-founded the UC Haiti Initiative, a University of California-wide effort launched in the aftermath of the 2010 Haiti earthquake to support partnership, recovery, and higher-education collaboration.

That shared history continues to inform ORA’s friendship with and support for UCDRN’s leadership. While not a formal disaster-resilience research partner, ORA represents the kind of values-aligned entrepreneurial relationship that has helped sustain UCDRN’s broader ecosystem of supporters, advisors, and collaborators.

Cage Free Productions is a creative strategy and media partner whose work centers storytelling, social impact, human rights, sustainability, and bridge-building across communities. For UCDRN, Cage Free has provided strategic communications support at critical moments, helping translate complex institutional, philanthropic, and public-service ideas into clearer narratives for prospective partners and supporters.

Through this collaboration, Cage Free has supported UCDRN’s private and philanthropic fundraising strategy, pitch development, and broader efforts to communicate the network’s mission with clarity and force. Their role is less about traditional marketing and more about helping UCDRN tell the right story to the right people at the right time.

The California Council on Science and Technology (CCST) is a trusted, nonpartisan source of science and technology advice for California policymakers, established in 1988 to connect the state’s policy needs with the expertise of California’s research institutions. CCST’s mission is to provide objective, expert guidance that helps strengthen public decision-making across science, technology, and policy.

UCDRN’s partnership with CCST has grown from shared programming into a broader science-policy collaboration. Together with UC Berkeley’s Institute for Security and Governance, UCDRN and CCST co-developed the Climate Change and Human Mobility briefing series, bringing researchers, policymakers, and practitioners into conversation around climate-driven migration, displacement, housing, insurance, and community resilience. Current discussions point toward expanded collaboration on future briefings, legislative engagement, and public-facing resilience programming.

Miyamoto International is a global engineering and disaster-risk management firm working to protect lives, sustain communities, and reduce risk through structural engineering, resilience planning, and post-disaster recovery expertise. The firm brings deep experience across seismic safety, disaster recovery, and practical resilience implementation around the world.

Miyamoto International’s relationship with UCDRN has expanded well beyond sponsorship of UCDRN’s inaugural Disaster Resilience Day. Through continuing engagement with UCDRN leadership, Miyamoto has become a valued partner in connecting engineering practice, disaster-risk reduction, public policy, and applied resilience research. The partnership is especially important as UCDRN builds pathways between UC expertise and field-tested approaches to protecting communities before and after disasters.

ARISE-US, the U.S. network of the UNDRR Private Sector Alliance for Disaster Resilient Societies, brings private-sector leadership into disaster risk reduction and resilience-building in alignment with the Sendai Framework. Through ARISE, businesses and cross-sector partners work to reduce disaster risk, strengthen resilience, and support sustainable communities.

UCDRN and ARISE-US have partnered to connect UC research, student leadership, and public-service expertise with private-sector resilience practitioners. Current and emerging areas of collaboration include mentorship, public-facing events, standards and guidance, and opportunities to translate academic research into tools, relationships, and practices that support disaster risk reduction across sectors.

The San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) at UC San Diego is a leader in high-performance computing, cyberinfrastructure, data science, artificial intelligence, and translational research infrastructure. SDSC supports researchers, educators, students, and multi-sector partners through advanced computing systems, data expertise, and technical support.

UCDRN and SDSC have partnered to develop the Disaster Resilience Database, envisioned as a systemwide “plugin point” for connecting UC expertise, datasets, tools, and partners across disaster resilience fields. The initiative is designed to help researchers, practitioners, policymakers, and innovators identify relevant expertise, support evidence-informed decision-making, and strengthen collaboration around compounding disasters and systemic risk.

The Association of Pacific Rim Universities (APRU) is a network of leading research universities across the Pacific Rim, bringing together institutions from across Asia, the Americas, and Australasia to address shared regional and global challenges. APRU supports collaboration on major issues including climate change, disaster risk, public health, sustainability, and higher education leadership.

UCDRN’s relationship with APRU has developed over several years through convenings, presentations, and collaborative engagement in Taiwan, Japan, UC San Diego, and other UC settings. Looking ahead, APRU is an important partner for UCDRN’s Pacific-facing work, including educational exchange, research collaboration, and potential Research Armada activities connected to UCLA and broader climate, disaster, and resilience initiatives across the Pacific Rim.

UCOnline is the University of California’s cross-campus online learning platform, enabling UC students to take high-quality online courses offered by UC faculty across the system and earn academic credit toward their degrees. UCOnline supports equitable access to digital learning and helps connect students with systemwide educational opportunities beyond their home campuses.

UCDRN’s partnership with UCOnline is central to the network’s Educate Pillar. Together, UCDRN and UCOnline are advancing a systemwide approach to disaster resilience education, including hybrid and online courses, future certificate pathways, and interdisciplinary training for the next generation of disaster resilience practitioners, researchers, and leaders.

The California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services (Cal OES) serves as the state’s leadership hub during major emergencies and disasters, coordinating state and federal resources, mutual aid, preparedness, response, recovery, and resilience efforts across California’s diverse regions and communities.

UCDRN’s relationship with Cal OES reflects the network’s commitment to connecting UC research and education with the practical needs of California’s emergency management and resilience communities. Through engagement with Cal OES leaders and partners, UCDRN is helping create pathways for science-informed planning, public-facing programming, hazard mitigation, and cross-sector collaboration that can strengthen statewide disaster resilience.

The University of Chile is one of Latin America’s leading public research universities and a key partner for UCDRN’s hemispheric disaster resilience work. Through collaboration with the University of Chile and CITRID, the university’s disaster risk research and integrated risk management center, UCDRN helped launch an inaugural international focus on seismic resilience, connecting UC expertise with Chilean leadership in earthquake science, preparedness, policy, and community resilience. The University of Chile’s broader research mission and national role make it a natural partner for this kind of cross-border work.

Building on that foundation, we are preparing to expand the collaboration both horizontally and vertically: horizontally, across the wider research and educational agenda needed to address compounding disasters and polycrises, including climate, wildfire, public health, infrastructure, governance, and community resilience; and vertically, through APRU, national partners, and regional collaborations across the Southern Cone and the wider Western Hemisphere. This relationship positions UCDRN’s Chile work as both a flagship international partnership and a bridge between campus-based research, regional practice, and Pacific Rim resilience networks.