| Overall Rating | Gold |
|---|---|
| Overall Score | 68.42 |
| Liaison | Austin Sutherland |
| Submission Date | Feb. 18, 2025 |
University of Pennsylvania
AC-10: Support for Sustainability Research
| Status | Score | Responsible Party |
|---|---|---|
|
4.00 / 4.00 |
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indicates that no data was submitted for this field
Student sustainability research incentives
Yes
A brief description of the student sustainability research program:
The Environmental Innovations Initiative is built around a vision of informing the transition to a more resilient society and fostering harmony with nature. The Initiative is committed to bringing together scholars, leaders, practitioners, students, and community members around themes of climate action, stewardship of nature, and human prosperity.
For example, the Integrating Sustainability Across the Curriculum (ISAC) Program helps course instructors at Penn introduce environmental sustainability into new and existing courses. The program, run by the Environmental Innovations Initiative with support from the Penn Sustainability Office, provides full funding for graduate or undergraduate summer research assistants, who work directly with faculty and lecturers to update or create new syllabi, lectures, assignments, texts, and/or tests that incorporate environmental themes.
Faculty sustainability research incentives
Yes
A brief description of the faculty sustainability research program:
The Environmental Innovations Initiative is built around a vision of informing the transition to a more resilient society and fostering harmony with nature. The Initiative is committed to bringing together scholars, leaders, practitioners, students, and community members around themes of climate action, stewardship of nature, and human prosperity.
For example, EII research communities develop coordinated, innovative, impactful, and inclusive solutions to these broad and complex problems. In response to this urgent and growing need, the Environmental Innovations Initiative catalyzes collaboration through our research communities.
A research community consists of an interdisciplinary group engaged in studying a common theme of broad environmental significance in one of three defined tracks: stewardship of nature, climate action, and societal resilience. Each community must include at least one public-facing outcome and offer opportunities for students to get involved.
Recognition of interdisciplinary, transdisciplnary and multi-disciplinary research
Yes
A copy of the promotion or tenure guidelines or policies:
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The promotion or tenure guidelines or policies:
Penn Integrates Knowledge Professorships This unprecedented faculty initiative had a bold, ambitious agenda: to recruit to Penn renowned scholars whose work draws from two or more academic disciplines and whose achievements demonstrate a rare ability to thrive at the intersection of multiple fields. PIK University Professors hold appointments in two or more schools, using their positions to build bridges between disciplines through collaboration. The University requires that all Schools use the same template for inviting letters from External Consultants. Interdisciplinary/multidisciplinary research can be considered with these prompts.
https://pikprofessors.upenn.edu/
https://faculty.upenn.edu/faculty/appointments-promotions/
Library support
Yes
A brief description of the institution’s library support for sustainability research:
The University of Pennsylvania library system supports sutainability research in a number of ways, including through provision of resources, support for courses and students, and through recognition and communications. As an example, the library provides research guides for a number of different departments and programs at Penn, including those with a sustainability focus: Earth and Environmental Studies, Architecture and City Planning, Urban Studies, and many more.
The library also provides faculty resources for instructional and teaching support through access services, instructional materials and technology, and curriculum support through a number of different programs and resources.
The collection in Earth and Environmental Studies reflects a wide range and diversity of subject material. The majority of the collection is electronic, with the print collection housed in the Van Pelt Library. Electronic access is favored over print for all publication types. The collection is strong in geomorphology, stratigraphy, biogeochemistry and palaeontology. Other areas of concentration are environmental policy, global climate change, water resource management, sedimentation, and sustainable development. Social, political, economic and regional aspects of these areas are also collected. The Library has strong social science, physical science, biomedical science, business, architecture and planning, and government document collections that help to support the broad field of study.
Dedicated librarians also provide specialized knowledge and guidance on particular subjects, such as Environmental Science. And recently the Penn Libraries has launched a Sustainability Book Prize to recognize outstanding contributions to the global discourse on environmental sustainability.
Optional Fields
Additional documentation to support the submission:
Data source(s) and notes about the submission:
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