The University of British Columbia
ER-15: Sustainability Research Identification

In 2009, the "Sustainability Academic Strategy" group developed a framework for indentifying UBC's sustainability research. The framework for sustainability research can be found at: http://www.sas.ubc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/SAS-RP-Inventory-Report-260709-_2_.pdf Sustainability research are those projects fall inside the sustainability “box”. Technology is added to the Economy pillar to explicitly acknowledge the role of technology in achieving a future that is both desirable and achievable in ecological, social and economic terms.

Identifying sustainability programs demonstrates the types of interdisciplinary collaborations and partnerships taking place and toward what end. Programs were identified using the materials below and were selected as they relate to the two cross-cutting themes: 1) campus as a living laboratory and 2) agent of change. The former refers to sustainability projects put into practice on campus, the latter, to using research to promote change in the broader non-academic community. Sustainability researchers were identified using a variety of resources on campus: • UBC External Affairs website using the keyword ‘sustainability’ in the expert search; • Department and individual faculty websites were mined for projects relating to the cross-cutting themes and researchers with sustainability research interests • An initial version of the UBC Researcher Information Services (RISe) system was mined for successful proposals relating to sustainability. • The Web of Science database was mined with key search terms to identify key sustainability publications coming out of UBC (PAIR, 2009). • Peripheral documentation such as Departmental or UBC community bulletins were used to identify projects and individuals working in the sustainability arena. For more detail, see http://www.sas.ubc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/SAS-RP-Inventory-Report-260709-_2_.pdf