University of Oklahoma
AC-10: Support for Sustainability Research

Yes, the Department of Geography and Sustainability offers research employment opportunities for students, providing financial support to both undergraduate and graduate students working on projects that address real-world sustainability challenges. In addition to research stipends, the department also offers academic credit for internships, funding to present at sustainability-related conferences, and opportunities for students to co-author publications with faculty members. Students benefit from mentorship and guidance from experienced researchers, which helps enhance their professional development and builds their skills in research methodology and data analysis.

Over the past three years, positive outcomes include the successful completion of several sustainability-focused projects. Many students have presented their research at sustainability conferences, leading to valuable networking opportunities and collaborative partnerships. Additionally, several students have successfully converted their research experiences into internships and employment with sustainability-related organizations.  

Yes.  The University of Oklahoma’s Institute for Resilient Environmental and Energy Systems (IREES) connects OU scholars from across our three campuses with national, regional, and place-based partners to understand the multiple interacting dimensions of transformational change and apply that knowledge to strengthen and empower communities, create new economic opportunities, and enable environmental improvement.

Established in 2021 to support the University of Oklahoma’s strategic plan and the strategic research vertical of energy, environment, and sustainability, IREES works to support the development of inclusive, equitable, and sustainable solutions to critical challenges at the intersection of society, the environment, and energy systems through convergent research, interdisciplinary education, and transformative partnerships. 

 Positive outcomes include 1) the establishment of the OU-National University of San Agustin of Arequipa (UNSA) Research Infrastructure Partnership, and 2) the allocation of $30,000 in seed grant funding to transdisciplinary projects which aim to build convergent teams to study socio-ecological systems (weather and climate-related threats to Sustainable Energy Systems, nature-based climate solutions and bio-based energy and products).

University Libraries at the University of Oklahoma supports sustainability research and learning in a variety of modalities.  As part of their strategic priorities, they visit classrooms in the Department of Geography and Environmental Sustainability majors to help the students learn valuable research skills for their projects and work.  They visit graduate research and professional development classes for the same purpose, as well as other classes upon faculty request.  Any student, faculty, or staff in the community can make appointments with one of four STEM librarians or with one of nine social sciences and humanities librarians, as their research needs dictate. 

University Libraries have research guides for all OU majors.  The most relevant ones to sustainability are listed here (https://guides.ou.edu/sustainability, https://guides.ou.edu/geography, https://guides.ou.edu/environment, https://guides.ou.edu/windlaw, and https://guides.ou.edu/RCPL), but the nature of sustainability research means that they refer researchers to many of our guides.  In our materials, they subscribe to many databases, including sustainability specific ones such as GreenFILE (ProQuest) and Environmental Science Index (EBSCO), in addition to standard STEM and social sciences databases like Web of Science, JSTOR, and Engineering Village.  Their catalog lists 293 available journal entries for the keyword "sustainability", and over 6,000 physical and ebook catalog entries for the Library of Congress Subject Header "Sustainability" without even adding related environmental keywords and subject headers.  They also purchase books on request from both students and faculty, allowing them to expand the collection based on researcher interests. 

Finally, they support researchers via initiatives such as advocacy for open scholarship, scheduled and on-request data and digital scholarship workshops, funding for open access publishing, and a digital scholarship and data services office hours and consultation division.  We work together to ensure the multidisciplinary needs of sustainability projects are well supported.