Climate and Health Research Network (CHeRN) is a project-based 501 (c) 3 created to allow researchers to come together to work on discrete climate and health-related projects, with public policy relevance.

A niche organization, CHeRN is able to fill gaps in a time when resources are increasingly, and continuously, constrained, yet the imperative to do something to make a difference for climate and health remains high. CheRN can expand and contract, with its workload, taking on highly-qualified, contracted staff as needed. This flexibility means that organizational costs will be minimized, providing a low-overhead route for grantors to deliver funds and allowing grantees to dedicate monies directly to project-related work.

CHeRN does not undertake public policy advocacy. By facilitating the conduct of research that addresses public health and climate issues, the output of CHeRN projects may be useful in supporting public health and climate advocacy by others.

There are five major activities planned for CHeRN:

• Support research to fill identified information gaps
• Serve as the fiscal agent for research projects
• Serve as a fiscal agent for sub-sets of larger research projects
• Host organizations seeking research funds
• Participate in research teams  in response to RFPs

CHeRN is a temporary site of the Development Effectiveness Project, aimed at pinpointing impediments to efforts directed at improving household services and working on developing and deploying approaches to overcome hurdles.