Arizona State University
AC-10: Support for Sustainability Research

Multiple programs:

ASU’s Sustainability Undergraduate Research Experiences (SURE) program provides students with research opportunities to help build their career skills and enhance their competitiveness for jobs and graduate school. Through the program, students will enhance their knowledge, skills and experiences in exploration and discovery, lifelong learning, knowledge generation and evidence building. The research positions in the SURE program cover a wide variety of sustainability challenges, such as:
• ecosystem dynamics and land/resource management
• collective action and sustainable governance
• food-water-energy systems dynamics
• human health and wellbeing
• environmental justice and just transitions

Projects address societal and biological dynamics, as well as the innovations and solutions that address complex sustainability problems. Diverse faculty will be involved as supervisors, including natural scientists, engineers, social scientists and scholars in the humanities.
https://schoolofsustainability.asu.edu/student-life/student-research/sure-program/

Innovation Space is an entrepreneurial joint venture among four schools at ASU. The program brings together students from the Design and the Arts, Engineering, Business, and Sustainability. The goal of the transdisciplinary education and research lab is to teach students how to develop products that create market value while serving real societal needs and minimizing impacts on the environment. Students gain hands-on experience working with students and faculty from other disciplines for credit.
https://design.asu.edu/innovationspace

The Humanities Lab has included sustainability topics in their workshops that bring students together. https://humanities.lab.asu.edu/

The Walton Sustainability Solutions hires students from various academic programs to assist with faculty on research and solutions-oriented projects with external organizations.
https://sustainability.asu.edu/sustainabilitysolutions/

The Changemaker Challenge encourages ASU students to make an impact with their project, prototype, venture or community partnership, including through a “Sustainability & Impact” category.
https://graduate.asu.edu/graduate-insider/apply-asu-changemaker-grant

SustainabilityConnect provides a listing of sustainability internship and project opportunities for students wanting to gain employment, research, educational, or volunteer experience in sustainability. https://sustainabilityconnect.asu.edu/

Sustainability Scientists and Scholars Network is a special designation for university researchers who conduct important work on sustainability topics. Sustainability science requires a comprehensive multidisciplinary approach, integrating practical experience with knowledge and action drawn from the spectrum of disciplines in the natural and social sciences, medicine, engineering, mathematics, humanities, and the arts. The formalization of a community of sustainability scientists and scholars from throughout the university—and ultimately from other research institutions—is meant to accelerate the pace of discovery and formally recognize the many contributors to this field.

Sustainability scientists and scholars participate in working groups organized around particular research themes. They receive specialized research development support, including training and proposal support. They are invited to events dedicated to expanding their knowledge and their collaborative networks. The Institute provides support with events, meetings, marketing, and communications and other services.

The website URL where information about the faculty research program is available:
https://sustainability-innovation.asu.edu/scientists-scholars/

Resources for Sustainability Scientists and Scholars Network:
https://sustainability-innovation.asu.edu/scientists-scholars/resources/

Institution-wide goal:
ASU's charter sets an institution-wide goal to "Establish ASU as a leading global center for interdisciplinary research, discovery, and development by 2025"
More information: https://president.asu.edu/asu-mission-goals

Departmental policies:
Tenure policies are not set at the institutional level. Instead, they are set by the college or department. A majority of ASU's tenured or tenure-track faculty work in departments with written policies that given positive recognition to interdisciplinary, transdisciplinary, and multidisciplinary research during faculty promotion and/or tenure decisions.

Examples (see file upload for links to full policies and all departmental guidelines):
(1) "The School of Transborder Studies fully supports single-discipline and interdisciplinary scholarship and creative activity."
(2) Fulton Schools of Engineering: "It is recognized that research may involve multiple collaborators from a range of disciplines and that some faculty member’s research programs may be highly collaborative. This is encouraged in Engineering and reviewers should consider this to be a positive attribute in evaluating applications for promotion and/or tenure."
(3) College of Health Solutions: "The College of Health Solutions values research that makes meaningful contributions to the health and well-being of society. The diverse faculty expertise across CHS facilitates meaningful impact across the spectrum of basic to applied research; and the structure of the College is designed intentionally to promote transdisciplinary, translational, and collaborative team science efforts that can rise to the challenge of solving complex societal health issues at scale."

ASU Library provides ongoing sustainability research support on many levels for ASU faculty, staff, students, and community users. ASU Library liaison librarians provide research assistance regarding sustainability research within their subject expertise role. The library purchases sustainability materials via approval plans, and via librarians, with sustainability assignments. ASU Library supports information literacy for sustainability research by assisting ASU students via web-accessible library or research guides, which include database research, course guides for sustainability classes, citation support, learning objects, and statistics. ASU Library has several research guides related to sustainability.

ASU's libraries match their support for sustainability research with sustainable operations. The Hayden Library, located on the Tempe campus, recently underwent a significant remodel, which included the addition of many resource-saving features. Sustainability achievements included:
• the use of recycled materials, which diverted approximately 80% of materials from a landfill.
• the re-installation of solar panels, which provide approximately 13% of the annual energy expense for the building.
• an overall redesign that reduced energy costs by 47%.
• the addition of low-flow plumbing features that reduced potable water demand by 37% and the addition of plant materials and new irrigation that reduced irrigation needs by 80%.

The ASU Library also hosts a Seed Library that is stocked with edible plant and herb seeds which are appropriate for Arizona growing conditions and seasons.
https://libguides.asu.edu/seedlibrary

Full list of library resources for sustainability:
https://libguides.asu.edu/sustainability