Dr. Mahmood Fayazi, associate Professor at SCU’s Institute of Disaster Management and Reconstruction (IDMR), established research collaboration between the municipality of Rigaud in Canada and IDMR in 2019. Based on this collaboration, the city council of Rigaud recognized IDMR as an internationally known research institute and agreed on supporting the IDMR researchers to study the experience of the 2017 and 2019 floods in this city. Based on the agreement letter, signed by the Mayor and other council members of the city, the municipality allows the IDMR researcher to access the information, provides an office for the researchers, and assigns municipality personals to assist the researchers during their stay in Rigaud. As a result, IDMR has geographically expanded its research coverage, and Rigaud can be considered as a research laboratory with the doors open for the IDMR researchers from all different expertise and interests. Benefiting from the collaboration opportunity between Rigaud and IDMR, Dr. Fayazi has initiated a research project, entitled “Household disparities and alternative disaster mitigation strategies: the case of floods in Rigaud in 2017 & 2019.”