| Overall Rating | Gold |
|---|---|
| Overall Score | 68.42 |
| Liaison | Austin Sutherland |
| Submission Date | Feb. 18, 2025 |
University of Pennsylvania
AC-9: Research and Scholarship
| Status | Score | Responsible Party |
|---|---|---|
|
11.72 / 12.00 |
Part 1. Sustainability research
Number of employees engaged in sustainability research:
Percentage of employees that conduct research that are engaged in sustainability research:
Part 2. Sustainability research by department
Number of academic departments that include at least one employee who conducts sustainability research:
Percentage of departments that conduct research that are engaged in sustainability research:
Research Inventory
Inventory of the institution’s sustainability research:
A brief description of the methodology the institution followed to complete the research inventory:
The Environmental Innovations Initiative manages a Faculty Database. They used the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a framework to understand how the teaching and research of Penn’s faculty members connect to global priorities.
The first approach was to deploy an interdisciplinary team of students to analyze the teaching and research of faculty members. Each student assistant assumed responsibility for batches of academic units. They reviewed the biographies, course descriptions, websites, and publications of each faculty member in that unit using an online form to ensure consistency. While thorough, this method was time-consuming and subject to human bias.
In partnership with Penn Libraries, the Initiative tested a second approach using the Dimensions research database to find faculty members whose research fields connect with one or more SDGs. Based on an analysis of publications between January 2018 and January 2023, EII identified Penn faculty members across the 12 schools whose research connects to one or more goals. The automated SDG categorization developed by Dimensions relies on supervised machine learning algorithms trained with specific search queries involving the 17 Goals, their associated targets (169), and unique indicators (232). Learn more
Optional Fields
Additional documentation to support the submission:
Data source(s) and notes about the submission:
The information presented here is self-reported. While AASHE staff review portions of all STARS reports and institutions are welcome to seek additional forms of review, the data in STARS reports are not verified by AASHE. If you believe any of this information is erroneous or inconsistent with credit criteria, please review the process for inquiring about the information reported by an institution or simply email your inquiry to stars@aashe.org.