University of California, Santa Barbara
AC-9: Research and Scholarship

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. Any time 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: Since we have reported to STARS before, we started our process for identifying researchers this year by looking at our list of researchers from our previous submission and contacting them to verify and update current 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.

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