Overall Rating Gold
Overall Score 72.96
Liaison Audrey McSain
Submission Date Feb. 16, 2022

STARS v2.2

Lehigh University
AC-10: Support for Sustainability Research

Status Score Responsible Party
Complete 3.00 / 4.00 Ainsley Lamberton
Administrative Director
Office of the Vice President and Associate Provost for Research and Graduate Studies
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Student sustainability research incentives 

Does the institution have an ongoing program to encourage students in multiple disciplines or academic programs to conduct sustainability research?:
Yes

A brief description of the student sustainability research program:
Science, Technology, Environment, Policy and Society (STEPS) and the Environmental Initiative offers funding to encourage students from all majors and all Colleges to engage in creative, independent research and scholarship under faculty supervision that focuses on the intersection of energy, environment, policy,economics and sustainability. These grants are intended to fund paid summer fellowships of 6 or 10 weeks duration that will correspond with full or second summer semester time periods established by the registrar or credit-bearing fellowships during the academic year.

Faculty sustainability research incentives 

Does the institution have a program to encourage academic staff from multiple disciplines or academic programs to conduct sustainability research?:
No

A brief description of the faculty sustainability research program:
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Recognition of interdisciplinary, transdisciplnary and multi-disciplinary research 

Has the institution published written policies and procedures that give positive recognition to interdisciplinary, transdisciplinary, and multidisciplinary research during faculty promotion and/or tenure decisions?:
Yes

A copy of the promotion or tenure guidelines or policies:
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The promotion or tenure guidelines or policies:
Faculty are given recognition for internal grants that encourage these types of research, and list them in their faculty promotion/tenure packets.

These awards include:
- Collaborative Opportunity Research Grants (CORE): provide up to $60,000 for - conduct of research with the goal of establishing and growing productive and competitive multi-faculty research programs.

- Accelerator Grants support teams of Lehigh investigators in developing multi-investigator research programs in particularly promising areas. These award provide up to $100,000 per team.

Library support

Does the institution have ongoing library support for sustainability research and learning?:
Yes

A brief description of the institution’s library support for sustainability research:
The Librarians write Library Research Guides, including ones covering the topics of sustainability that are available to faculty, staff and students on the Library website. Examples of environmental research guides:
http://libraryguides.lehigh.edu/ees379
http://libraryguides.lehigh.edu/es125

The Library added new databases such as DataPlanet to provide access to environmental and sustainability data. In the collections area added many new electronic books and journals from Wiley and other publishers-find these titles in ASA and in the new ASA article search on the library webpage: http://www.lehigh.edu/library

The Library continues to provide access to Faculty research including all the Fritz Laboratory Reports in the Lehigh Preserve- access to full text of the research articles; https://preserve.lehigh.edu/

Optional Fields 

Website URL where information about the institution’s support for sustainability research is available:
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Additional documentation to support the submission:
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Data source(s) and notes about the submission:
The data above was not impacted by COVID-19 and therefore is representative of a normal year.

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.