CSEA Community Lab
Supporting Community Priorities Through Service
The CSEA Community Lab offers no-cost, short-term consultations to Arctic communities. These consultations are designed to help communities turn their priorities into research goals, and to connect them with the researchers, tools, and resources that can support real-world solutions and informal, hands-on training. Contact us for details.
CSEA is here to listen and help.
Our consultations are simple: Arctic communities bring us a question or challenge, and we connect them with the right people and tools to explore solutions. These are short-term (usually 2–4 months) and always free to the community.
For example, a Tribal council might ask us to review their community’s research protocol—the local rules researchers must follow when doing work in their region. CSEA could connect them with experts in data management and research ethics. Together, we’d go through the document, highlight gaps, and suggest revisions that strengthen the community’s control and voice in research and its products.
In another case, a community may receive a lengthy environmental impact report tied to a proposed development project. They want to know what the report’s findings mean for their people’s health, safety, and subsistence activities. Through consultation, CSEA can help interpret the technical language, explain potential risks and benefits, and provide an actionable summary that supports the community in making an informed decision.
Consultations like these provide communities with practical tools and confidence to move forward. At the same time, they give researchers and students the chance to better understand local contexts and priorities. In fact, these consultations are the foundation of CSEA’s broader research goals: learning how to clearly communicate community needs to academic partners, and how to share possible solutions—such as research activities—in ways that build trust, create shared understanding, and expand capacity in both communities and academia.
Every consultation begins with communities acting as the client. They set the goals, and CSEA’s role is to connect them with collaborators who can advise, answer scientific and technical questions, or help draft policies that address their priorities. While consultations are short-term and no-cost, communities may choose to continue working with CSEA and its partners to seek funding for larger, longer-term projects. In this way, a brief consultation can become the seed for a multi-year initiative—always grounded in community-identified needs and leadership.
The Lab is rooted in a community-based participatory research model. This means we create structured ways for communities to express their needs to researchers, and for researchers to explain their approaches in language that honors community knowledge, voice, and culture. These frameworks also allow us to learn from every interaction, building strategies that improve communication between communities and scientists and ensure that research is both respectful and relevant. Our goal is to shape communication in ways that make research understandable, useful, and actionable for communities while deepening collaboration with scholars.
For Arctic communities, the CSEA Communication Lab provides immediate and practical support. Communities gain insight into the research process and experience with research skills such as GIS mapping or interpreting environmental data. They also have opportunities to share Indigenous and local knowledge with researchers in ways that directly shape solutions. Each consultation produces results that are meaningful locally, while also reinforcing the community’s agency in determining how research is conducted in the Arctic.
For researchers and students, the benefits are equally strong. Consultations create structured, community-focused environments where they gain real-world problem-solving experience. They learn how to engage with Arctic communities in ways that are collaborative, respectful, and effective. Many find that these consultations open doors to future projects and partnerships, built on trust and shared purpose.
Why it matters
The CSEA Communication Lab demonstrates a practical and scalable model for community-driven research. Each consultation generates clear, actionable outcomes—such as stronger local protocols, hazard mitigation plans, or data strategies—that communities can put to use right away. These short-term efforts also lay the groundwork for larger, longer-term research initiatives, ensuring they begin with community priorities and trusted partnerships.
Importantly, consultations also provide us with data to map community needs across the Arctic. This growing knowledge base helps identify patterns, highlight emerging concerns, and guide both communities and researchers toward effective collaborations. At the same time, each consultation serves as a site for informal STEM training and workforce development. Community members gain hands-on experience with tools like GIS mapping, environmental monitoring, or data analysis, while students and researchers practice collaborative, community-engaged methods.
In this way, every consultation not only addresses immediate priorities but also strengthens Arctic research capacity, expands pathways into STEM fields, and builds the foundation for sustainable, community-centered research.