Our Background

Rising Voices was initiated at NSF NCAR in 2013 to increase engagement among Indigenous communities in the U.S. and Indigenous and other scientists by asking the question at the first Rising Voices workshop: What are the elements of successful co-production of science and policy in the fields of extreme weather and climate change?

Rising Voices was initiated to foster greater scientific excellence and effective strategies for adaptation to and mitigation of severe weather and long-term ecological change. The Rising Voices' founders recognized the critical role that both Indigenous and mainstream sciences had to offer in improving our understanding of these phenomena and strategies to address them, and committed to creating a program that could facilitate better communication and collaboration between our communities. As part of this commitment, Rising Voices:

1. Recognizes the role and contributions of Indigenous Peoples and sciences to the global climate conversations over the decades, which have often gone unnoticed and unreported in scientific publications;
2. Increases engagement among Indigenous communities in the U.S. and Indigenous and other scientists; and
3. Encourages all participants to see themselves as collectively part of developing stories of climate adaptation, instead of seeing Indigenous peoples as primarily sources of data that can help to advance careers (CTKW, 2014; Whyte, 2013)