University of Virginia
AC-10: Support for Sustainability Research

The University has several programs to support student research of all forms, including sustainability research.

UVA’s Environmental Institute, formerly the Environmental Resilience Institute, links research to action to create workable solutions for climate change and environmental resilience challenges. The EI fosters collaboration, providing support for new projects as well as amplifying and connecting the work of others across disciplines at UVA. The EI creates opportunities for the next generation of leaders to engage with some of the toughest environmental challenges through interdisciplinary research and practical experiences. We do this through research fellowships for graduate students and postdoctoral fellows; summer internships and job-shadowing with alumni mentors in industry, nonprofits and government agencies; and translational research projects through our Decarbonization Corps program. EI also develops professional development programming to support interdisciplinary readiness, with themes including: Team Science, Community Engagement, and Design Thinking.
https://environment.virginia.edu/

The Institute offers a variety of summer internships for UVA students. These ten-week paid summer internships provide a pathway for students to explore career opportunities and engage in real-world applications of environmental research.

The Decarbonization Corps was one of the new internship initiatives launched in 2023 and catalyzed projects to increase the pace of decarbonization through faculty-led translational research projects. Teams include practitioners, supported by a student intern.

Externships are opportunities for University of Virginia students to shadow workplace mentors in an aspect of climate change mitigation and/or environmental sustainability during the January term.

The Environmental Futures Fellows program funds University of Virginia graduate students conducting interdisciplinary summer research on environmental resilience and sustainability.

The UVA Office of Undergraduate Research (OUR) encourages students to get involved in research. The Center administers the Harrison Undergraduate Research Awards and maintains a database of research opportunities both at UVA and elsewhere. The Harrison Undergraduate Research Awards provide funding for students to pursue independent research projects over the summer. While the up-to $4,000 grants can be used to pursue projects of any topic, in the past years several grants have been awarded to students pursuing sustainability-related research projects. Recent recipients researched such topics as 3D printing organic material, the effect of climate change on germination, and cost effective approaches to improving low income housing assistance.
https://undergraduateresearch.virginia.edu/

The Environmental Institute was created in 2017 as the Environmental Resilience Institute. In 2023, the Institute rebranded as the Environmental Institute. The Institute supports interdisciplinary research and training that is both great and good at the intersection of climate change and human well-being. The EI connects faculty, students, and citizens to create solutions for a more equitable, resilient, and sustainable future. As part of UVA’s Grand Challenges investment, the Institute currently stewards $19.5 million in Strategic Investment Funds for catalyzing collaborative research and $3.8 million from the P2PE Initiative for postdoctoral fellowships and three forthcoming faculty positions in three schools. The Institute does this through: 1. Operating as the hub of environmental resilience and climate change research at UVA. 2. Investing in and facilitating interdisciplinary research teams that can work together to develop solutions that are transformative and have societal impact. 3. Cultivating external partnerships to translate UVA research findings into real-world policy and practice. 4. Training the next generation of leaders in environmental work and research.

The Institute creates and supports large collaborative research teams that build both capacity at the University and relationships with external partners in areas that position UVA to be a global leader. Climate Collaboratives and the Carbon Restoration Initiative are two ground-breaking programs that showcase the Institute’s unique capacity to bring faculty together from various schools to find real-world solutions to environmental change. Climate Collaboratives are large, interdisciplinary research teams working with community partners to address urgent climate-related challenges in Virginia and beyond. The Institute will award $10 million over the next five years for six new Climate Collaboratives. The first two projects were awarded in Summer 2023. Climate Collaboratives are funded $1 - $1.5 million over three to four years and include support for personnel (faculty, post-doctoral fellows, graduate students, undergraduate students, community liaison), engagement (travel, community meetings, communications), and research expenses.

Climate Collaborative 1: Clean Energy Transitions in Appalachia The first Climate Collaborative explores one of the nation’s key untapped resources to promote environmental sustainability: renewable energy in mountainous regions, particularly Appalachia. This team will explore whether projects can be co-developed with stakeholders to maximize economic benefits, job opportunities, and community resilience.

The second Climate Collaborative is based in Bihar, currently India’s most flood-prone state, and an area with one of the highest poverty rates. Floods are becoming more common and extreme due to climate change threaten local wells and other drinking water infrastructure. This 2 Climate Collaborative supports elected women representatives as they seek solutions from the state to ensure water security at a time of increasing flood risk.

The Environmental Institute provides support for collaborative research teams through seed funding programs, many of which are successful in garnering external funding to grow and continue their work. There are three different grant opportunities for UVA faculty: Rapid, Spark, and CoLab. 3 Rapid Grants are intended to help faculty, postdoctoral fellows, and students conduct studies that are time-sensitive and responsive to climate-based emergencies. Examples include hurricanes, COVID, and earthquakes. Rapid Grants provide funding up to $30,000. Spark Grants provide funding for an individual UVA researcher ready to build a novel research team or initiative. This program jumpstarts team formation and new projects that have the potential to lead to sustained collaboration and funding. Spark Grants provide funding up to $30,000. CoLab funding is available for new teams of UVA faculty from at least two separate disciplines for one to two years. The Institute looks to support research that has societal impact and a high likelihood of receiving external funding to grow and sustain the research. CoLab Grants provide funding up to $100,000. Seed funded projects from the Institute haver received multi-million dollar, center-scale projects, from the National Science Foundation from programs such as Coasts and People and Navigating the Arctic. Teams have secured funding as early as one year following initial EI seed funding, such as Water Security in the Colorado River Basin and Climate-Related Coastal Flooding on the Atlantic Coast.

The Commission on the Future of the University, a group charged with proposing strategic directions for the University for the next decade, highlighted the important of interdisciplinary collaboration in the Commission's 2008 report:

"Significant and consistent collaboration and interaction across all ten schools of the University are critical to fostering a shared vision, common goals, innovative programs, and bold initiatives. Meaningful collaboration and interaction can differentiate the University in important ways and build a foundation for other strategies to achieve differentiation." UVA now has four pan-university institutes that promote transdisciplinary research.

The Vice President for Research offers multiple programs to organize and promote interdisciplinary research efforts, including theOpenGrounds initiative. OpenGrounds is a unique combination of interdisciplinary programming, challenges, research fellowships, and a network of physical spaces distributed across Grounds to promote ad hoc collaboration. A new program, 3Cavliers, is being launched to seed interdisciplinary research projects.

Tenure and promotion processes are typically initiated at the School and Departmental Levels. The following are selected excerpts from School-level Promotion and Tenure policies that give positive recognition to interdisciplinary research:

Promotion and Tenure Policy School of Engineering and Applied Science - Revised May 12, 2011:
"Cross-disciplinary research is encouraged and is recognized as a valuable complement and enhancement of the candidate's strength and depth in a central area of expertise."
POLICIES FOR FACULTY MANAGEMENT McIntire School of Commerce:

Collaborative or joint research among the faculty, both within and across disciplines, is encouraged. Collaboration often enhances the quality and relevance of research.
School of Medicine - Criteria for Collaboration:

The NIH roadmap for patient-oriented research endorsed team science and established the expectation of expertise for interdisciplinary investigation and collaboration. The national academies have suggested that the evaluation of outcomes of interdisciplinary research and teaching will focus less on the usual number of publications and more on the impact of these publications. A successful interdisciplinary program will affect multiple disciplines and the connections among these fields.

The University Library provides a full range of services to support sustainability research and learning. For instance, the Fiske Kimball Fine Arts Library has a Materials Collection that includes samples of green building materials used in buildings and landscapes. Library staff will create Research Guides for specific courses, such as the Community Food Systems course. The Scholar's Lab offers custom-created map and data repositories for sustainability focused classes as well.