Overall Rating Gold - expired
Overall Score 66.20
Liaison Josh Lasky
Submission Date May 14, 2014
Executive Letter Download

STARS v1.2

George Washington University
ER-15: Sustainability Research Identification

Status Score Responsible Party
Complete 3.00 / 3.00 Lisa Benton-Short
Director of the Sustainability Academic Program
Department of Geography
"---" indicates that no data was submitted for this field

Has the institution developed a definition of sustainability research?:
Yes

A copy of the institution's definition of sustainability research:

In 2010, a multidisciplinary faculty committee drawn from seven GW schools provided a strategic plan to launch a sustainability research initiative. The faculty committee defined sustainability research as: research that addresses the impact of environmental change on society and the technological, political, and economic responses to these challenges. Ultimately sustainability research attempts to answer the question of how best to manage human interactions with the environment in a way that prevents or minimizes environmental degradation over both the short and long term.


Has the institution identified its sustainability research activities and initiatives?:
Yes

A brief description of the methodology the institution followed to complete the inventory:

The Faculty Committee is actively engaged in identifying sustainability research at GW through guidelines it established in 2010. For this STARs update, the Director for the Sustainability Academic Program and the Executive Director for Sustainability together refined that inventory by school, based on further website review of faculty bios and published papers, along with information provided by the Office of the Vice President for Research, which tracks sponsored research across the university. The resulting document was then shared with members of the pan-university Faculty Sustainability Committee, who were tasked with reviewing and vetting submissions for their individual schools, thus providing a quality peer review.

GW has many research centers and Institutes. Foremost, is the Sustainability Institute, which provides an organizing function for sustainability research. Yet many other centers and institutes contribute significant research, including the GW Solar Institute, Center for Urban and Environmental Research, Center for Risk Science and Public Health, Institute for Corporate Responsibility, Rodham Institute, Institute for Crisis Disaster and Risk Management, and the Redstone Center. A full listing of GW centers and institutes is available from the URL provided. This listing, along with the identified faculty and their research interests, as posted on the GW Sustainability page, provides clarity on GW's research footprint.


Does the institution make its sustainability research inventory publicly available online?:
Yes

The website URL where the sustainability research inventory is posted (required if claiming Part 3 of the credit):
Data source(s) and notes about the submission:

(1) In late 2014 a new website will be launched to better showcase the university's sustainability research inventory but it is not available at the date of this submission.
(2) The faculty profile page provides a brief description of faculty research and teaching interests to give readers a sense of the breadth of work underway at the university: https://sustainability.gwu.edu/faculty-profiles


(1) In late 2014 a new website will be launched to better showcase the university's sustainability research inventory but it is not available at the date of this submission.
(2) The faculty profile page provides a brief description of faculty research and teaching interests to give readers a sense of the breadth of work underway at the university: https://sustainability.gwu.edu/faculty-profiles

The information presented here is self-reported. While AASHE staff review portions of all STARS reports and institutions are welcome to seek additional forms of review, the data in STARS reports are not verified by AASHE. If you believe any of this information is erroneous or inconsistent with credit criteria, please review the process for inquiring about the information reported by an institution or simply email your inquiry to stars@aashe.org.