ARISE is a Network for collaborative education and research activities in Africa established by Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health (HSPH) in partnership with Africa Academy for Public Health (AAPH) and leading institutions/organizations across the African region. In June 2014, a foundational meeting was held in Boston, MA with all partners from education and research institutions in seven African countries i.e., Botswana, Ethiopia, Ghana, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania and Uganda to discuss advancing coordinated and collaborative education and research activities in order to address critical gaps in population health. The meeting afforded the opportunity to establish a Network, which builds upon the numerous ongoing training and research activities among participating institutions - the Africa Research, Implementation Science and Education Network (ARISE Network).

Some of the ARISE Network member institutions include Africa Academy for Public Health in Tanzania, University of Ibadan Research Foundation in Nigeria, University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa, National Institute of Public Health - Nouna Health Research Center in Burkina Faso, Makerere University - School of Public Health in Uganda, Addis Continental Institute of Public Health in Ethiopia, Dodowa Health Research Centre in Ghana and University of Ghana School of Public Health also in Ghana.

ARISE Network activities include prioritizing and mapping-out plans to advance purposeful and collaborative public health capacity building efforts with a focus on implementation science. The Network is a platform for north-south and south-south learning leveraging on existing academic infrastructure within partner institutions/organizations where junior scientists and/or clinicians are trained to lead projects, while science managers and administrators are mentored in good administrative practices.

The ARISE Network is an active collective for cutting-edge public health research and sustainable implementation science projects as well as high-impact intervention programs particularly identifying and addressing adolescent (age 10 – 19 years) population health needs in sub-Saharan Africa.[1],[2],[3],[4],[5]

Currently, the ARISE Network is implementing two collaborative projects; 1) Research Network for Design and Evaluation of Adolescent Health Interventions and Policies in Sub-Saharan Africa (DASH), and 2) Reducing nutrition-related noncommunicable diseases in adolescence and youth: interventions and policies to boost nutrition fluency and diet quality in Africa (ARISE NUTRINT). These initiatives co-opt multisectoral experts across sub-Saharan Africa, USA and Europe in 14 partner sites for surveillance, intervention design and evaluation, policy imperatives, capacity building, and meaningful adolescent and youth engagement.