New innovative Hunch Lunch Series brings community experts and researchers together to exchange insi

New innovative Hunch Lunch Series brings community experts and researchers together to exchange insights.

KER takes an approach to research that acknowledges the community’s roles in creating knowledge.

Community members are often unsure of how to leverage their experiences and insights in conversations about data analytics and science. The Hunch Lunch not only breaks down silos of knowledge across sectors, but also lets nonacademic expertise take center stage.

Hunch Lunch participants mingle before the flash talks begin.

The first step in exchanging knowledge and developing partnerships is sharing hunches, ideas rooted in experience that have not yet been tested. When informed by formal knowledge from the public university, the result can be a strong set of ideas to pursue together.

Unfortunately, we rarely have the chance to take the time to share this kind of knowledge between organizations and sectors. In September, we held our inaugural Hunch Lunch to help break down those barriers and facilitate this exchange.

Community members presented brief flash talks on the most recent, pressing or interesting issues of community resilience from their vantage point. Speakers shared information about a profound change, disruption or unanticipated phenomenon as well as their hunches about what is going on.

Krickette Wetherinton and Jayson Matthews of the Valley of the Sun United Way present their flash talk on rising poverty among elderly individuals experiencing homelessness.

Presentations included:

Building civic health for resilient youth — Center for the Future of Arizona

Increasing gaps in a system to alleviate homelessness — St. Vincent de Paul Partnership

Housing does not end homelessness; community ends homelessness — Ozanam Manor

The recent rise of poverty among the elderly homeless — Valley of the Sun United Way

New cooling investments coming for the built environment in Phoenix — The Nature Conservancy

Heat risk in Maricopa County — NOAA/NWS Phoenix

What can we do now to beat the heat with utility assistance — Utility Assistance Network

Experiences with participatory science engagement of diverse families — AZCEND