Central Michigan University
AC-10: Support for Research

The Institute for Great Lakes Research, or IGLR, an institute of Central Michigan University, provides monetary and educational incentives to encourages students, faculty, and local scientists to conduct sustainability research. Utilizing a $10,000,000 grant from the EPA, IGLR launched the first-ever Great Lakes basin-wide coastal wetland monitoring program. Students are funded to conduct field research, data collection and analysis to that has resulted in a sustainable ongoing and long-term monitoring system designed to act as a wetland heath/condition assessment.

The Great Lakes Institute of Sustainable Systems promotes faculty research in sustainable fields. Incentives include public and organizational recognition, publication, factors playing into tenured decisions, as well as resource support during research.

The CMU Library maintains a collection of materials that supports sustainability research. Its collections of journals, books, media items, and other materials is maintained for the purpose of providing research support to both faculty and student researchers. An increasing percentage of the library’s resources are available in electronic formats, meaning they are accessible around the clock and from wherever the researcher happens to be. If a researcher needs a copy of an item not owned by the CMU Library, there is an interlibrary loan service available. Materials can be obtained from other libraries at no cost, with the typical processing and delivery time being within 24-48 hours. The library has subject librarians who have expertise in areas related to sustainability (e.g. the sciences, social sciences, health, education). These librarians are available to provide research assistance to both faculty and students and to provide instruction in the use of library services and resources to graduate and undergraduate classes. They can also help faculty identify and access both library-owned resources and open access materials that will support the course development process. A subject librarian has created a research guide on the topic of sustainability, and it can be found at http://libguides.cmich.edu/sustainability Positive outcomes include highly specialized research consultants, whom effectively aide in students' efforts to focus literature retrieved for both basic and applied research, leading to more specific, well-informed and defendable research conducted by students and faculty.