University of California, Santa Barbara
AC-9: Academic Research

Please see attached inventory.

For the purposes of reporting to STARS, UCSB’s definition of research that relates to or has research applications/implications related to sustainability includes research which:

1) Seeks to better explain the dynamic functionality of and history of earth’s systems as they may affect humans;
2) Seeks to better explain the relationship between humans and the environment;
3) Seeks to better explain human impacts on the natural environment;
4) Seeks to better explain the effect of environmental issues on humans or society more broadly;
5) Explores and responds to the relationship between humans and the natural environment through art and culture; and/or
6) Develops innovative solutions through practice, technology, or artistic expression regarding an issue affecting the environment and our relationship to it.

The majority of research at UC Santa Barbara is foundational in nature. Due to this, we often needed to look at the potential applications or implications of the research to discern the connection to sustainability.

We only included research that included an environmental component. Research that only addressed social justice and economic aspects of sustainability were not included.

We did not include research focused on understanding how ecosystems or organisms function if there was no explicit connection to an environmental issue. If the ecological research investigated issues of restoration, human impacts, remediation, etc. we did count it.

We included creative activities of fine arts and humanities faculty, as well as articles and publications. We sought “substantial” projects, including both grant-funded projects and non-funded projects. For publications and ongoing experiments, we included “in progress” work.

Research that addressed cultural relationships with the natural environment was included. For example, we included research that addressed how the environment has been represented in literature over time, especially if the faculty linked the research to how this change in perception might have affected the way society treats the environment.

In some of the cases we looked at, the researcher had not been conducting research with the primary objective of solving a sustainable challenge, but a sustainability innovation occurred as a “side effect.” For instance, the researcher might be developing a new technology with the goal of creating a faster computer chip. If the innovation was also significantly more energy efficient than the current technology on the market, we counted it.

Process for evaluating which research to include:
We developed an initial list of researchers that we thought might be conducting sustainability related research (see process for identifying researchers below.) That list was divided amongst a group of student interns and sustainability staff. Each person then reviewed material online about their researchers and contacted them for more information and eventual verification of the research description. In cases in which the answer appeared obvious and where the researcher did not object to the description, these cases were not further evaluated. For those cases where the judgment was unclear, however, the intern/staff member assigned to that researcher would bring the case to the group of evaluators working on this area of STARS to be debated. Anytime a faculty member thought that their research was not related to sustainability, we did not include it, regardless of the intern's/staff member's opinion of its relation. This arose, for instance, with researchers that we believed worked on climate change, but who did not want to be listed as a “climate change” researcher for fear that this would make them appear biased in their research.

Who to include:
We included all researchers that are eligible to be a principal investigator on our campus. This includes professional research staff, lecturers with security of employment, faculty, and several other categories. We did not include graduate students who are not eligible to be a principal investigator because we did not feel that we could collect accurate data in a timely manner.

For a full description of who is included in the list of principal investigators, please see: http://www.research.ucsb.edu/spo/proposal-preparation/principal-investigator-eligibility/

For academic departments, we included all research units and centers, as well as traditional academic departments.

Process for identifying researchers:
We reached out to the UCSB Office of Research and completed a keyword search of grant titles. Please see the end of this description for a list of keywords used. In doing the keyword search, we were able to collect information on the principal investigator (PI) name, PI home department, administering department, title of the contract/grant, sponsor name, amount funded, award begin date, end date for grant, and field of research. We also did a campus-wide survey of faculty and researchers and asked them directly if they did research related to sustainability. In the survey, we collected descriptions of their research. Most of the descriptions from the survey were too brief for us to include in the final report; however, we collected leads to follow up on. The Office of Research's website was also helpful because it included news articles and announcements of grants, awards, and recognition of faculty accomplishments. Departmental and faculty websites were also reviewed. Lastly, we contacted research unit and center directors and department chairs in order to verify that the list we had for that department or research center/unit was accurate and complete. This step was particularly helpful for ensuring we were including the appropriate non-faculty researchers who are eligible to be principal investigators.

Keyword Search Terms Used:
• Global warming
• Energy Efficiency
• Energy Efficient
• LED
• Light-emitting diodes
• Biomimicry
• Urban Planning
• Sustainability
• Sustainable
• Ecology
• Ecological
• Coral
• Recycling
• Ecosystem
• SusChEM
• Carbon Capture
• Carbon dioxide capture
• Acidification
• Greenhouse Gases
• Endangered
• Solid State
• Inspired by Nature
• Food Security
• Peace
• Biodiversity
• Environmental Justice
• Pollution
• Pollutant
• Environmental Health
• Resiliency
• Corporate Social Responsibility
• Organic Agriculture
• Fair Trade
• Wind Energy
• Biofuel
• Biofuels
• Health Disparity (ies)
• Life Cycle Assessment
• Nature
• Environment
• Environmental
• Emissions
• Resource Economics
• Population
• Lighting
• Energy policy
• Resource management
• Wind power
• Ecocriticism
• Ecotourism
• Human impact(s)
• Feedstocks
• Biomaterials
• Solar cells
• Solar energy
• Photovoltaic(s)
• Methane conversion
• Resource scarcity
• Transportation
• Land preservation
• Watershed
• River systems
• Anthropogenic stressors
• Water quality
• Air quality
• Cancer

See the list above

The following academic departments were found to have at least one researcher working on sustainability:

Anthropology
Art
History of Art and Architecture
Black Studies
Bren School of Environmental Science & Management
Chemical Engineering
Chemistry and Biochemistry
Computer Science
Earth Science (formerly Geological Sciences)
East Asian Languages and Cultural Studies
Ecology, Evolution, and Marine Biology
Economics
Electrical and Computer Engineering
English
Environmental Studies
Feminist Studies, Department of
Film and Media Studies
French and Italian
Geography
Gevirtz Graduate School of Education; Department of Education
Global and International Studies
History
Latin American and Iberian Studies (PROGRAM)
Marine Science
Materials
Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology
Political Science
Psychological & Brain Sciences
Sociology
Women, Culture, and Development Studies
Writing Program
Communication
Mechanical and Environmental Engineering
Physics

The following research centers/units were found to have at least one researcher working on sustainability:

California NanoSystems Institute
Carpinteria Salt Marsh Reserve
Carsey-Wolf Center for Film, Television, and New Media
Center for Control, Dynamical Systems, and Computation
Center for Energy Efficient Materials
Center for Interdisciplinary Research in Fluids
Center for Marine Assessment and Planning (CMAP)
Center for Middle East Studies
Center for Multifunctional Materials & Structures (CeMMaS)
Center for Nanomedicine
Center for Nanotechnology in Society (NSF)
Center for Polymers and Organic Solids
Cheadle Center for Biodiversity & Ecological Restoration
Coal Oil Point Reserve
Coastal Research Center
Earth Research Institute
Ecoinformatics Center
Institute for Collaborative Biotechnologies
Institute for Energy Efficiency
Institute for Multi-scale Materials Studies
Institute for Social, Behavioral, and Economic Research
Institute for Terahertz Science and Technology
Interdisciplinary Center for Wide Band-Gap Semiconductors
Marine Biotechnology Center
Marine Science Institute
Materials Research Laboratory
MesoAmerican Research Center
Mitsubishi Chemical Center for Advanced Materials
National Center for Ecological Analysis & Synthesis
National Center for Geographic Information and Analysis
Neuroscience Research Institute
Ocean Acidification
Ocean and Coastal Policy Center
Orfalea Center for Global and International Studies
Santa Cruz Island Reserve
Sedgwick Reserve
Solid State Lighting and Energy Center
UC Center for Environmental Implications of Nanotechnology
UCSB Natural Reserve System
Valentine Eastern Sierra Reserve (includes Sierra Nevada Aquatic Research Laboratory and Valentine Camp)

The following departments were not included in the count of departments because they do limited amounts of research:
• English as a Second Language
• Military Science (ROTC)
• Interdisciplinary Courses
• Interdisciplinary Studies

We also did not include Global Peace and Security (PROGRAM) because there was so much overlap with the Global and International Studies Department.

For research units and centers, we made the following exceptions:
• Social Science Survey Center/Benton Survey Research Laboratory - No longer exists
• Institute for Crustal Studies, now Earth Research Institute (ERI) - ERI is counted
• Institute for Computational Earth Systems Science, now Earth Research Institute - ERI is counted
• Health Data Research Facility - Included in ISBER