About CAFE
The BUSPH-HSPH CAFE Research Coordinating Center (RCC) was established with unprecedented support from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). This collaboration between the Boston University School of Public Health and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health aims to build a Community of Practice by managing and supporting research and capacity-building efforts at the intersection of the natural, physical, and health sciences.
The CAFE RCC builds a global Community of Practice to advance climate and health research. By convening stakeholders across government, NGOs, industry, researchers, and funders—we foster collaboration, accelerate research, and expand capacity for impactful solutions to protect communities across the globe.
Our work is organized into four key areas:
collaboration & impact
data & analysis
learning & advancement
engagement & outreach
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Frequently Asked Questions
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What is the CAFE RCC?
The CAFE Research Coordinating Center (CAFE RCC) is a three-year cooperative agreement between the Boston University School of Public Health, the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and the National Institutes of Health. The CAFE RCC aims to Convene, Accelerate, Foster, and Expand the climate and health community of practice, both in the US and globally.
What is the function of the CAFE RCC?
C - To Convene a climate and health community of practice (COP) through organizing and hosting events geared toward capacity building in the larger research community.
A - To Accelerate climate and health research within the community of practice (COP). Our team uses an extensive experience in data management, curation, and sharing, specifically in the context of climate and health research, to:
- Identify research data needs and define common data elements across the COP.
- Develop and promote data science and software tools for processing, linking, and analyzing data.
- Facilitate sharing and reuse of data.
- Provide data management, dissemination guidance, and cloud computing infrastructure.
F - To Foster collaborations across the COP by:
- Facilitating communication, engagement, and sharing of resources within the COP.
- Stimulating co-production of new knowledge and ideas across the COP.
- Promoting timely dissemination and translation of COP advances into solutions that protect communities today.
E - To Expand the existing CCH COP by:
- Developing a community of climate and health scientists via education, training, and mentoring.
- Providing funding for pilot projects.
- Fostering a multidisciplinary, global COP.
Who is the Climate and Health community of practice (COP)?
The Climate and Health community of practice is anyone interested in climate and health, including researchers, government agencies, NGOs, community-based organizations, industry, or foundations.
How can I join the community of practice (COP)?
Anyone interested in climate and health can become a member of our COP by completing our intake form here.
What can I do for/with the CAFE RCC?
Join our COP through the intake form and participate in surveys. Sign up for the annual meeting, suggest topics, lead sessions, provide training materials, contribute data to the Harvard Dataverse, mentor ESIs, and engage on social media.
What can the CAFE RCC provide for me?
- Data management resources to aid your own data analysis, including code and analysis examples, a data management template plan, as well as community-provided data sets
- Free/low-cost climate and health educational resources (including available online courses, texts, and podcasts), with new content coming soon
- Networking events for meeting and collaborating with experts in the field
- Mentorship opportunities and mentoring for pilot awardees
- Opportunities to participate in / present your work at annual meetings
- Working groups around critical climate and health topics of interest
- Database of existing climate and health research projects and available funding resources
- Pilot funding
What data management help will and will not be provided by the CAFE RCC?
Will provide:
- A CAFE-CH Collection of CH data on Harvard Dataverse, allowing researchers to contribute, deposit, share, and reuse data. Commonly used GitHub datasets will be curated and deposited into the collection by the CAFE RCC team.
- A CAFE-CH Collection of CH code, software, and tutorials on GitHub allowing researchers to contribute, share, and reuse existing code and software for data processing and analysis to facilitate reproducibility. The CAFE RCC team will share code/software/tutorials for commonly used data processing and analysis tasks such as spatial aggregations, data harmonization, and analysis.
- Data management and dissemination guidelines for the community.
- For pilot awardees, additional services and guidance on utilizing cloud computing infrastructure will be provided.
Will not provide:
- Researcher-specific data curation or data analysis services.
What funding is available from the CAFE RCC?
The application for the 2025 Pilot Program has now closed. Thank you to our applicants, we will be in touch as the review process progresses.
Who do I contact for a Letter of Support from the CAFE RCC?
Please utilize the Contact Us button at the bottom of this page.
Who do I contact with additional questions not covered here?
Please utilize the Contact Us button at the bottom of this page.
