University of Southern California
AC-10: Support for Sustainability Research

Institution encourages and/or supports sustainability research through one or more of the following:

• An ongoing program to encourage students in multiple disciplines or academic programs to conduct sustainability research. To qualify, the program must provide incentives (e.g., fellowships, financial support, and/or mentorships) that are specifically intended to increase student sustainability research.

• An ongoing program to encourage academic staff from multiple disciplines or academic programs to conduct sustainability research. To qualify, the program must provide incentives (e.g., fellowships, financial support, and/or faculty development workshops) that are specifically intended to increase sustainability research by academic staff.

• Published promotion or tenure guidelines or policies that give explicit positive recognition to interdisciplinary, transdisciplinary, and/or multidisciplinary research.

• Ongoing library support for sustainability research and learning in the form of research guides, materials selection policies and practices, curriculum development efforts, sustainability literacy promotion, and/or e-learning objects focused on sustainability.

This credit applies to all institutions where research is considered in employee promotion or tenure decisions. Institutions that do not consider research in promotion or tenure decisions as a matter of policy or standard practice may choose to mark all of the Research credits as Not Applicable. Pursuing one or more Research credits and marking other credits in the subcategory as Not Applicable is not allowed.

An institution earns the maximum of 4 points available for this credit by providing all of the incentives and supports listed in the criteria above. Partial points are available based on the number of incentives and/or supports provided. For example, an institution that provides 2 of the 4 incentives or supports listed would earn 2 points (half of the points available for this credit).

Timeframe

Active programs and policies, and incentives offered within the three years prior to the anticipated date of submission are eligible for this credit.   

Sampling and Data Standards

Not applicable.