The UConn PIRE project brings people and resources together across disciplinary, cultural, and geographical boundaries to promote knowledge-driven and rights-based interventions that enhance food and water security in vulnerable settings. We promote a political-institutional model of science that links sociological and engineering methods for a people-centered approach. Our political-institutional approach integrates graduate and undergraduate education, professional training, and community outreach into the research program to develop the human capital and social connections between all stakeholders—scientists, farmers, policymakers and students in the United States and in Ethiopia. The project achieves its objectives through:

• Provision of superior quality seasonal forecast information at a scale relevant to local farmers and water resource managers
• Identifying political-institutional barriers that influence the uptake of new forecast information
• Training a new generation of global expert that constitute competitive international work force