The main objective of the Environmental RIsk Management Under ExTremes and Uncertainty-MERIT - project is to strengthen capacities of targeted south universities so to provide high quality education, research and outreach in the field of environmental risk and extremes that meet labour market demands, supports sustainable national socio-economic development and achievement of Sustainable Development Goals. MERIT is a partnership of five universities; Norwegian University of Science and Technology (Norway), Makerere University (Uganda), Uganda Marty’s University (Uganda), University of Dar es Salaam (Tanzania) and Haramaya University (Ethiopia). The regional level project responds to knowledge and capacity gaps with respect to environmental risk, increasing extremes and uncertainty linked to climate change and changing demographic and socio-economic conditions. The fundamental challenge which MERIT partnership seeks to address is to identify sustainable development paths for communities and ecosystems under increasing environmental risk, uncertainties and extremes. Our intended development impact is to provide East African countries with co-created new knowledge and tools that helps in propelling the resilience agenda and realization of the UN SDGs and Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (2015-2030). Our actions over a six-year period are central to NORHED II and include (i) training at postdoctoral, doctoral and masters level (ii) curriculum improvement (iii) infrastructure improvements (iv) creation of knowledge and policy products (v) initiate and carry out high quality research (vi) creation of knowledge hubs and centres (vii) initiate targeted efforts to integrate gender perspectives in research and education (viii) development of digital resilience tools. Our research will focus on unravelling complexities to provide the best possible scientific evidence and solutions to policy and practise for enhancing resilience.