University of Richmond
AC-9: Research and Scholarship

Faculty research is recognized at annual university events. As part of these events, a comprehensive list of all research published that year is created. The lists for 2021, 2022, and 2023 were manually reviewed to identify sustainability research. In addition, the University's scholarship repository was manually reviewed for sustainability research. Publications that involved more than one University of Richmond faculty were counted separately for each faculty.

To evaluate the research, we looked for topics that addressed key sustainability concepts such as: environmental management, governance, placemaking, decolonization, biodiversity, food, equity, justice, human rights, well-being, development, land use, policy, ecology, climate, energy, nature, resilience, urbanization, air quality, pollution, globalization, identity, human health, and green technologies. We also included cultural heritage and migrations as they are key to sustainability because they support social cohesion, preserve traditional knowledge, and foster economic resilience. Cultural heritage helps maintain community identity and sustainable practices, while migration drives adaptation to environmental challenges and strengthens economies, benefiting both migrants and host societies.

To determine the number of academic departments that include at least one employee who conducts sustainability research, we counted the School of Law and the School of Professional and Continuing Studies each as one department in addition to the 21 other undergraduate departments.