University of California, Davis
AC-10: Support for Sustainability Research

The Green Initiative Fund, a campus program hosted by the Office of Sustainability and supported by student fees, offers students the opportunity to develop and launch innovative sustainability projects on campus, and to have a greater impact on sustainability within the UC Davis campus and the immediate region. While this fund is not intended to solely fund research (it also funds sustainability projects and events), students are encouraged to apply for funding for research projects, and a number of student research projects have been funded – from design and building of electric cars and a Hyperloop for future transportation; to low impact design/green infrastructure; smart trash cans to improve recycling contamination rates; fertilizer from urine distillation; water quality and habitat research in the campus Arboretum; research satellites to monitor climate data; and more. URL: https://tgif.ucdavis.edu/

The TGIF program is listed and advertised on the Undergraduate Research Center website and featured at the Resource Fair during the Undergraduate Research Week events each October. Students who engage in sustainability research on campus are encouraged to present in the annual UC Davis Undergraduate Research, Scholarship & Creative Activities Conference, where students who are participating in undergraduate research with a sustainability focus are recognized in a special listing and their poster has a special designation as an "Aggie Sustainability Project". There are approximately 100-120 student presenters per year (out of 700 student presenters) who indicate that their project has a sustainability focus and are recognized at the conference.
URL: https://urc.ucdavis.edu/conference

The UC Davis Department of Chemistry also offers the NSF ChemEnergy Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) Program, which has a sustainability focus related to Catalysis, Energy, Materials and Biotechnology.
URL: https://chemistry.ucdavis.edu/reu-program

The John Muir Institute for the Environment offers the Muir Institute Graduate Fellowships program. In 2018, the John Muir Institute of the Environment awarded the inaugural set of Muir Institute Graduate Fellowships to six graduate students working across a variety of projects that encompass many of the Muir Institute’s Core Initiatives including Big Environmental Data, One Climate, World Water Initiative, and Wild Energy. The fellowships provided $5,000.00 for research costs and conference or research related travel. Research projects that qualified focused on policy solutions and strategies relevant to California issues. The awardees presented their research to the public at an end of year symposium in November 2019.
URL: https://johnmuir.ucdavis.edu/2019/05/01/muir-institute-graduate-fellowships-awarded/

The programs listed here use either internal campus funds or external sponsor funds to engage faculty in our institution in sustainable research. Funds are open to all relevant faculty to apply, and the ITS fund is even open to faculty outside of UC Davis. The ITS funds are reported by UC Davis Office of Research to have brought UC Davis faculty not previously working on ‘sustainability’ issues into working on sustainable transportation projects.

Office of Global Affairs Grants for Advancing Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): These are team-focused grants of up to $7,500 to fund locally executed but internationally oriented multi-disciplinary programs such as lectures and workshops that highlight and enhance UC Davis’ connections to one or more of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
URL: https://globalaffairs.ucdavis.edu/sdgs-grants

John Muir Institute for the Environment ‘Muir Fellows’ program: Launched in 2017, the program recognizes exemplary UC Davis faculty and staff whose career and research epitomizes the mission of the Muir Institute: Discover. Research. Solve. Each recipient receives $5,000 to help seed their research. Areas of research for the 2019 Fellows include: understanding the consequences of ocean acidification and climate change on coastal communities and marine life; restoration of floodplains in California and abroad; impact investing, climate finance, and socially responsible investment; soil health, carbon sequestration, nutrient cycling, and greenhouse gas emissions in agroecosystems; biophysical processes and interactions that inform crop decisions.
URL: https://johnmuir.ucdavis.edu/2019/10/09/muir-institute-2019-fellows-exemplify-wide-range-of-disciplines-tackling-climate-change-at-uc-davis/

Environmental Health Sciences Center (EHSC) seed grants: The EHSC invites applications for seed funding for feasibility studies or new interdisciplinary collaborations with strong potential to lead to a funded submission for a National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) or another grant award.
URL: https://environmentalhealth.ucdavis.edu/for-scientists/funding-opportunities/seed-funding

Institute for Transportation Studies (ITS) and the National Center for Sustainable Transportation: The UC Davis Institute of Transportation Studies (ITS-Davis) accepts proposals for seed grants, research projects, and white papers for research related to sustainable transportation.
URL: https://ucdavis.infoready4.com/#competitionDetail/1806406

UC Davis has a culture of interdisciplinary, transdisciplinary and multidisciplinary research, as seen in the many centers (e.g., Center for Health and the Environment), Organized Research Units (e.g., John Muir Institute of the Environment), and programs (e.g., BIRCWH K12) that facilitate and support such research. UC Davis does not have a policy that specifically rewards inter-disciplinary research in the merit and promotion process for academic personnel; however, department chairs and deans often remark on the unique value of such work in their advancement letters, and such research is considered during faculty promotion and tenure decisions through the existing policy regarding merit and promotion decisions. Because interdisciplinary/multidisciplinary research is inherently collaborative, faculty are encouraged to describe their leadership contributions to scholarship derived from such work and are no longer required to demonstrate “independence” for advancement.

UC systemwide policy on academic advancement can be found in Academic Personnel Manual Policy APM 210 and APM 220; UC Davis’ implementation of the policy can be found in APM UCD 220 and in our Step Plus guidelines. Links to these four policies and guidelines are:
- APM 210: http://www.ucop.edu/academic-personnel/_files/apm/apm-210.pdf
- APM 220: http://www.ucop.edu/academic-personnel/_files/apm/apm-220.pdf
- APM UCD 220: https://aadocs.ucdavis.edu/policies/apm/ucd-220/ucd-220-(9-5-06).pdf
- UC Davis Step Plus Guidelines: https://academicaffairs.ucdavis.edu/step-plus-system

The Chancellor’s Blue Ribbon Committee on Research Final Report acknowledges current strengths in interdisciplinary research and calls for further enhancement and strengthening of such research; and an independent assessment of research at UC Davis also notes that UC Davis has been listed by the National Science Foundation “in 11th place among institutions with doctoral recipients reporting two or more research fields as part of their dissertation work” (page 51; External Review of Research, University of California, Davis; May 27, 2010; the Washington Advisory Group).

The Interdisciplinary Research & Strategic Initiatives (IRSI) division within the Office of Research provides services to initiate, develop and advance interdisciplinary research at UC Davis. These services include coordination of limited submissions, development of large-scale grant proposals, identifying funding opportunities, managing organized research units and establishing partnerships with entities off campus.

The IRSI has an Interdisciplinary Research Catalyst Faculty Fellows Program that awards funding for interdisciplinary research. To be eligible to receive awards outstanding faculty members must be nominated by the Dean of their respective School or College in consultation with the Office of Research.

Links to above-mentioned centers, ORUs and programs:
- Center for Health and the Environment: https://che.ucdavis.edu/
- John Muir Institute of the Environment: https://johnmuir.ucdavis.edu/
- BIRCWH K12: https://health.ucdavis.edu/ctsc/area/education/bircwh/index.html
- Chancellor’s Blue Ribbon Committee on Research Final Report: https://research.ucdavis.edu/wp-content/uploads/FINAL_Blue_Ribbon_Committee_on_Research_Report1.pdf
- IRSI: https://research.ucdavis.edu/key-initiatives/interdisciplinary-research-catalyst/
- Catalyst program: https://research.ucdavis.edu/research/interdisciplinary-research-strategic-initiatives/

Librarians of the UC Davis Library continue to update subject guides for many of the academic disciplines offered at UC Davis. All guides contain recommendations for which specialized indexes to use to find articles and other resources for disciplinary topics. Some examples of subject guides are Environmental Science, Policy and Management and Environmental Engineering. The library has class-specific guides as well, for example, ENG 3: Introduction to Engineering Design, ECI 126: Integrated Planning for Green Civil Systems. An example of a new guide that provides links to key resources and search tools for open access (OA) is the Open Access Literature Resources for International Agricultural Researchers. Each guide has a librarian subject specialist that students, faculty and staff can contact for questions and help.

In May 2019, the Library co-presented Savor: Wine, Wildfire and Climate Change with the Robert Mondavi Institute; this was an event featuring former Governor Jerry Brown and Dr. Anita Oberholster of the Viticulture and Enology Department, who studies the effect of smoke exposure on wine grapes. In February 2020, the Library co-hosted a conference, Wine in the Anthropocene, with Dr. Julie McIntyre, Senior Lecturer in History, Humanities & Social Science, Fulbright Scholar, University of California, Davis, and Interim Director - Centre for 21st Century Humanities, University of Newcastle.

The UC Davis Undergraduate Research Center noted that the campus offers additional funding and research program/mentoring opportunities for undergraduate students, including the following (this is not an exhaustive list):
- Provost's Undergraduate Fellowship
- Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Research
- URC Travel Award
- NSF LSAMP program
- MURPPS
- BUSP
- Mentor Mentee Program for Humanities and Social Sciences
- McNair Program
- UC LEADS
While these opportunities are not only for sustainability research, they are inclusive of students wishing to apply to support a sustainability research project.

On a note of making the Library itself a more sustainable place to study and conduct research: In August 2019, the library installed a total of 6 hydration stations, which helps to reduce single-use plastic bottles. As of January 2020, the library received 10 waste bins which will be deployed to designated areas on the lower level, first and second floors. These bins will be used to audit waste streams generated in the Library, and will be in place indefinitely to reduce waste contamination in the library and to progress the University’s plan to meet its zero waste goal.