We are proud to present the International Community-University Research Alliance (ICURA) project, Managing Adaptation to Environmental Change in Coastal Communities: Canada and the Caribbean, that links community members and university researchers from Canada with members of the Caribbean community in support of research on coastal adaptation to environmental change including the impacts of storm surge and sea-level rise on susceptible coastal communities.

This project was developed in 2007 from preliminary research team meetings in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada with the Canadian Fisheries, Oceans, and Aquaculture Management (C-FOAM) Research Group at the Telfer School of Management of the University of Ottawa together with colleagues at the Sir Arthur Lewis Institute of Social and Economic Studies (SALISES),  The University of the West Indies, St Augustine Campus, Trinidad and Tobago.

The Letter of Intent (LOI) application for the research project was submitted to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) on November 21, 2007 in response to the new ICURA program sponsored by SSHRC and the International Development Research Centre (IDRC). On the basis of the submitted LOI, on April 7, 2008 the project was invited by SSHRC and IDRC to develop a formal proposal for a five year research project for submission to SSHRC and IDRC on October 22, 2008. On June 29, 2009, as part of the first awarded ICURA projects, the C-Change project was formally funded to carry out its research program from 2009 through to 2014 in selected coastal community sites in Canada and the Caribbean.

The C-Change project is led by co-directors Dr. Dan Lane at the Telfer School of Management of the University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, and Dr. Patrick Watson, Director of SALISES at the University of the West Indies, St. Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago, along with a team of over twenty co-applicants, collaborators, and community partners.

This website represents the efforts of the research team to establish communications among team members and the communities they serve in this international alliance of communities and universities toward enhancing community capacity to prepare for pending environmental change.