Overall Rating Gold
Overall Score 71.21
Liaison Lisa Noriega
Submission Date June 29, 2022

STARS v2.2

Yale University
AC-9: Research and Scholarship

Status Score Responsible Party
Complete 12.00 / 12.00 Lisa Noriega
Sustainability Data Analyst
Yale Office of Sustainability
"---" indicates that no data was submitted for this field

Part 1. Sustainability research

Total number of employees that conduct research:
5,187

Number of employees engaged in sustainability research:
3,423

Percentage of employees that conduct research that are engaged in sustainability research:
65.99

Part 2. Sustainability research by department

Total number of academic departments that include at least one employee who conducts research:
102

Number of academic departments that include at least one employee who conducts sustainability research:
85

Percentage of departments that conduct research that are engaged in sustainability research:
83.33

Research Inventory 

A copy of the inventory of the institution’s sustainability research (upload):
Inventory of the institution’s sustainability research:
See attachment

A brief description of the methodology the institution followed to complete the research inventory:
Data was extracted from the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) research inventory. The Yale Office of Sustainability launched a project aimed at understanding how Yale’s teaching and research aligns with the 17 UN SDGs. A group of interdisciplinary students (hereafter referred to as the team) uses an online form mainly composed of pre-populated fields to collect information on the research of the 4,400+ faculty at Yale and how their work relates to the SDGs. The basic review tactic is an audit of faculty biographies, websites, and courses taught. In some cases, a brief internet search may supplement information available on Yale websites. Information collected on each faculty member includes:
• Full name, net ID, title, email
• Primary appointment
• Secondary appointment (where applicable)
• Centers, Labs, or Programs (where applicable)
• Other Affiliations (where applicable)
• Specialties & Interests
• Website(s) (link)
• Courses (link)
• Connections to each of the 17 goals
Once the information has been entered into the form, it can be downloaded as a CSV file for analysis and to generate lists and spreadsheets. Full name, net ID, email, and primary appointment is determined by the Yale Directory. Secondary appointments, centers, labs, or programs, other affiliations, and specialties and interests is determined using faculty webpages.
In preparation for the research inventory data collection, each member of the team is required to develop a thorough understanding of the SDGs, including the narrative and targets that undergird each goal. For the purpose of STARS, we define “sustainability research” as faculty who have been tagged in the inventory as working on 1 or more SDG.

To collect information on research staff, the Yale Office of Sustainability uses the Yale Centers and Institutes list. This list is divided into three categories - Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences, Medical & Health Sciences, and Sciences & Engineering. Center and Institute websites are reviewed and staff members whose job title involves research related duties, including but not limited to: editorial staff, postdoctoral staff, specialists, programmers, analysts were marked as staff researchers. Job titles which were excluded were administrator, manager, coordinators, administrative assistant, director. The total number of research staff for the Medical & Health Sciences centers and institutes was provided by a previous review (2016) conducted by the Director of the Yale School of Medicine Faculty Support. This review uses a more comprehensive list of job titles including but were not limited to; technicians, biostatistician, laboratory assistant, research and development tech, research assistant, research associate, statistician. Sustainability staff are identified by a review of center and institute websites. If the center/institute is identified as relating to sustainability, all research staff are marked as sustainability staff.

Optional Fields 

Website URL where information about the institution’s sustainability research is available:
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Additional documentation to support the submission:
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Data source(s) and notes about the submission:
The 3423 figure is inclusive of the data on two tabs: “Sustainability faculty” (there are 3122) and “Sustainability staff” (there are 301).

For this credit, we are following AASHE's COVID-19 guidelines (https://stars.aashe.org/resources-support/help-center/using-the-reporting-tool/stars-reporting-and-covid-19/), as Yale intended to conduct an updated SDG faculty research inventory for the 2020-2021 academic year, but were unable to due to the pandemic. However, we will conduct this inventory for the 2022-2023 academic year beginning in the fall of 2022. The inventory being reported was conducted within the previous six years (2020), and the methodology is appropriate for STARS v. 2.2.

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.