University of Minnesota, Duluth
AC-9: Research and Scholarship

Researcher/Research Inventory List

The list of sustainability researchers/research was compiled from two sources: Works, which is a database of publications Faculty use to keep track of accomplishments and generate an annual activity report that is submitted to their department, and a current list of funding awards with project titles from the Sponsored Projects Administration (SPA) unit at UMD.

The UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), a comprehensive and globally accepted framework for sustainability, provided a useful structure for reviewing the contributions of UMD faculty and staff to research. Using the UN SDGs as a lens for review resulted in a more inclusive list of sustainability research being completed at the university, due to the SDGs putting as much, if not more emphasis on the social and economic aspects of sustainability as the ecological aspects.

Staff from the Institute on the Environment at UMD reviewed publications from Works and assessed the titles/descriptions for their alignment with the UN Sustainable Development Goals. If the work aligned with one or more goals, it was included in this list as well as for inclusion on the Sustainability Portal, which showcases UMD depts, research, and courses related to the SDGs. 

The funded projects list from SPA was reviewed by the Sustainability Director at UMD. Project information was limited to the submitted project titles which were searched for key words like climate, sustainability, water, justice, health & wellbeing, food sovereignty, air quality, pollution, waste, recycling, reuse, etc.

Any researchers on the list for alignment with the UN SDGs was included in the count if their research was shown to cross over more than one SDG area. 339 folks were identified as crossing more than one SDG category and is the number we are using for active researchers. The inventory shows each researcher's project(s) and coded SDG(s) that align with their work. 

Total number of employees that conduct research was determined by reviewing employee headcounts. Faculty members from all depts were included in the counts as well as admin and support staff from some non-academic departments that conduct research. The count of total employees conducting research is likely high due to using this more inclusive method to determine research status.