Florida State University
AC-10: Support for Research

FSU offers a variety of ways for students to engage in research opportunities, including sustainability topics: The Center for Undergraduate Research and Academic Engagement (CRE) promotes and supports the engagement of FSU undergraduates in research and creative projects with the supervision and/or collaboration of FSU faculty. CRE lists research and internship opportunities available for students and provides awards and scholarships which are available to support research activities. Specifically, the IDEA Grant through the CRE inspires students with research interests in sustainability to find new ways to research and explore difficult societal issues. The Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program (UROP) offers an opportunity for students to work closely with faculty and peers, receive mentorship and training in the UROP Colloquium class, and present their contributions in the Spring Research Symposium. One sustainable component of UROP is that junior and senior students who have been through the program return to teach the class. This fosters peer to peer learning, higher engagement, and a sustainable supply of students available to teach, increasing student success. Research experiences through the Garnet & Gold Scholar Society are sustained scholarly or creative projects developed under the direction of a faculty mentor that culminate in a formal presentation, publication, performance, or exhibition. Through the Research Experience, students will demonstrate the ability to apply research methods appropriate for the student's discipline and engage in ongoing critical discussion within their chosen field.

The Office of Proposal Development holds a “Collaborative Collisions” event every semester where researchers from all Colleges, Departments, and Centers come together to discuss potential collaborations on sustainability topics. Researchers participating in the event topic create a poster outlining their research interests and discuss potential topics for collaboration. Previous event topics include: health, environment, smart cities, and education. The goal of “Collaborative Collisions” events is to foster interdisciplinary collaborations by providing an atmosphere to discuss researcher’s expertise, potential contributions to a research team, and partnerships to enhance their own research. At FSU, faculty are encouraged to pursue research and scholarship that expands the frontiers of knowledge in their areas of expertise. Their cutting-edge research enriches and informs classroom teaching and their achievements gain national and international recognition. FSU supports numerous research centers, research partnerships, and large-scale collaborative grant/research consortia to enhance the scholarship of sustainability disciplines. FSU also provides seed funding for new research projects through its Council on Research and Creativity (CRC), and specifically provides funding for the initial formation of multidisciplinary research teams. CRC funding is non-disciplinary specific, though there has been several sustainability focused, or related, projects over the past few years.

As mentioned in "Successful Faculty Performance in Teaching, Research, and Service" (2010, FSU Dean of Faculties office): programmatic research and focused creative work should not be constrictive. A faculty member’s research or creative work should be flexible enough to take advantage of serendipity, as well as collaboration with students and colleagues...Faculty members also collaborate with their colleagues by adding their specialized research or artistic expertise to a project even though the project is tangential to their own work...While a certain amount of diversity in research and creative work is appropriate, a faculty member’s Vita should still show clear evidence of a research program or creative focus that is long-term, or periodically evolving, if substantive contributions are to be made to his or her field of study or expression. There should be an obvious coherence in the titles of publications, presentations, and contracts and grants.

University Libraries partner with faculty in research, creative activities, and teaching by providing a wide range of services, a wealth of resources, and professional expertise. Subject librarians are appointed to academic units to work with faculty to acquire necessary resources, consult on research and publishing, participate in courses, and collaborate on grants or research projects. Events, such as lectures, symposia, and receptions, provide opportunities for faculty to share ideas and research and to connect with others across disciplines. As with most other FSU research support services, these are non-discipline specific, with the exception of the subject area librarians. The FSU libraries also offer Research Guides put together by subject librarians with extensive information and research resources on hundreds of topics, and guides are developed upon faculty request.

https://www.lib.fsu.edu/scholars-commons/subject-specialists https://www.lib.fsu.edu/news/water-symposium http://guides.lib.fsu.edu/index.php