White House Mandates Open Access to Government-Funded Research
Any research based on federally funded studies must be made freely available to the public without an embargo under a policy announced Thursday by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. The new requirement, which is due to take effect by the end of 2025, updates an existing policy that allowed a 12-month embargo for making research freely available.
U Utah Receive $20M for New Climate Science & Policy Center
With a $20 million gift, the university recently announced the creation of the interdisciplinary Wilkes Center for Climate Science and Policy to study effective public policies and propose entrepreneurial business solutions to curb and combat the threats that climate change poses to human and environmental health.
Haskell Indian Nations U Receives $20M for Indigenous Science Hub
The National Science Foundation recently announced the $20 million award for the Large Scale CoPe: Rising Voices, Changing Coasts: The National Indigenous and Earth Sciences Convergence Hub. The science hub will be a convergence of disciplines and epistemologies where Indigenous knowledge-holders from diverse coastal regions will work with university-trained social, ecosystem and physical Earth system scientists and students on transformative research to address coastal hazards in the contexts of their communities.
Dartmouth College B-School Receives $52M for Endowed Sustainability Summit
The Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth recently received a $52.1 million anonymous pledge to endow a recurring summit that convenes global leaders from the private and public sectors, academic researchers and students with the goal of inspiring action to improve the health, wealth and sustainability of people and the planet in the 21st century. Summit topics will explore the intersecting roles of public policy, health care, climate change, politics and finance in addressing global challenges.
U Illinois Chicago Receives $1.5M for Social Justice Initiative
The university's Portal Project, which launched in 2021 and focuses on abolition, economic democracy and climate justice, has received a $1.5 million grant from the Marguerite Casey Foundation. The grant will be used to expand its work at the intersection of social justice scholarship and social movements, culminating in a national conference and book publication.
U Virginia Launches $60M Climate Change Solutions Program
The university's newly announced Grand Challenge Research Initiatives will invest $60 million into collaborative climate change research. UVA researchers will work to develop clean energy solutions and help local communities develop best practices for responding to climate-driven challenges.
Stanford U Receives $1B for School of Sustainability
Stanford’s first new school in 70 years will launch this fall as the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability, recognizing a $1.1 billion gift from John and Ann Doerr. The school will have academic departments that advance subject understanding, interdisciplinary institutes that innovate across fields, and an accelerator focused on developing near-term policy and technology solutions. (Image credit: Edward Caldwell)
Federal US Government Directs $3M to HBCUs for Decarbonization Research
The U.S. Department of Energy announced recently that $3 million in federal funding would be directed toward historically Black colleges and universities, and other minority serving institutions, for research dedicated to carbonizing power generation and to help strengthen a pipeline from those schools into energy-related jobs.
U Pittsburgh Introduces Social Justice Faculty Fellowship
The Office of Health Sciences, Diversity and Inclusion recently established a social justice faculty fellowship program that aims to raise awareness among faculty about health inequities in the local community. The program, funded by campus-community partnerships, was developed to address Pitt students’ calls to action on social justice and systemic racism.
U Southern California Opens Three New Sustainability Research Centers
The new research centers, which are housed within the university's Wrigley Institute for Environmental Studies, are focused on Earth and Environmental Systems, Applied Environmental Solutions, and Social Transformation. The three centers will merge the interdisciplinary expertise of the institute’s affiliated faculty, full-time senior scientists, post-doctoral fellows and graduate students to better understand and help to solve environmental and sustainability challenges.
Georgetown U Opens Environment & Sustainability Institute
The Earth Commons, Georgetown’s new Institute for Environment & Sustainability, is building new educational programming for undergraduate and graduate students, expanding research opportunities for faculty members and students, and developing scalable solutions for a sustainable campus and planet. The institute will be composed of multiple focal areas that will each focus on a major environmental issue, including environmental justice, climate change and energy transitions, environmental health, food and water security and biodiversity conservation.
MIT Initiates the Energy Systems Research Center
Working with energy partners, the new research consortium, the Future Energy Systems Center, aims to address the climate crisis and the role energy systems can play in solving it. The center investigates the emerging technology, policy, demographics and economics reshaping the landscape of energy supply and demand, then conducts integrative analysis of the entire energy system.
Dickinson College Announces $100,000 Prize Winner
Announced during the COP26 U.N. Climate Conference in Glasgow, Dickinson presented the Sam Rose ’58 and Julie Walters Prize at Dickinson College for Global Environmental Activism to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The $100,000 Rose-Walters Prize is bestowed annually on an individual or organization making a defining difference to advance responsible action on behalf of the planet, its resources and people. The 2022 prize honors the IPCC’s work, including producing and communicating scientific knowledge that is the foundation of informed and effective action on climate change.
Royal Roads U Launches Climate Leadership Masters Degree
Approved June 2021, the new Master of Arts in Climate Action Leadership is a two-year, 36-credit degree program geared toward people who want to create the social, political, environmental and economic changes needed for a low-carbon, resilient future. The program places an emphasis on the intersection of climate science, social science, justice and change leadership.
