Research Co-Leads: Gulsah Akar and Steven Quiring
On March 3, we hosted our first research webinar as the Smart and Resilient Communities (SRC) program of the Sustainability Institute (SI). Our webinar featured Professor David Sailor from Arizona State University (ASU), Director of ASU Urban Climate Research Center, School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning. His presentation “Facilitating urban cooling technology innovation and adoption through living laboratory experiments” highlighted several university-government-industry collaborations that are being used to demonstrate, test and improve technologies and strategies for urban cooling. A key component of the approach is a focus on targeted and equitable mitigation to maximize benefits for the most at-risk populations. Jason Cervenec, Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center, and Harvey Miller, Geography and director of the Center for Urban and Regional Analysis (CURA), joined our conversation as panelists. Students, faculty and staff from a diverse set of disciplines attended the webinar, leading to an interactive and lively discussion following Professor Sailor’s presentation. We look forward to hosting future webinars to bring the SRC community together. Please reach out with ideas on topics of interest as well as future speakers.
Another focus for us has been meeting with SI core faculty who have research interests that intersect with Smart and Resilient Communities. The goal of these meetings is to learn more about their ongoing research efforts and identify ways that SI can better facilitate and support their research. It was fascinating and insightful to hear of the great things they are working on. We received many new ideas for ways that SI might be able to support faculty. Here are some of those idea highlights:
First, a number of SI core faculty thought it would be valuable to have more effective ways to identify potential collaborators. It can be difficult to find out who is doing what at Ohio State, especially if you are new. This is exacerbated by the pandemic where our normal social interactions have been curtailed. Available methods, like examining faculty web pages, are time consuming and decentralized, so a searchable online database that contained a more complete summary of faculty research interests, projects and grants is one potential approach that was suggested. Faculty also encouraged SI to play a more active “match making” role by bringing together groups of faculty who might benefit from working together. A related theme was to have more social events and mixers, which a more organic way of meeting new people and identifying potential collaborators.
Another theme that emerged was the desire to have SI share research resources. The specific resources varied depending on the field of study. Those who engage in lab-based research were interested in sharing research equipment. Since start-up funds are limited, faculty could benefit from borrowing or sharing equipment with others. In the social sciences, faculty mentioned that they could benefit from a shared subject pool that would allow them to pilot survey instruments and conduct studies. These already exist in some places at Ohio State, but are typically limited to faculty who are affiliated with those departments or colleges.
Join an Exploratory Research Group
That being said, it must be mentioned that SI is forming a collaboration with other campus units and programs to support researchers from across the university in growing collaborative, interdisciplinary teams focused on sustainability or resilience topics. A new initiative, Exploratory Research Groups (ERGs), will support early-stage, exploratory research and creative expression on a range of faculty-determined topics. Read more about this in this newsletter and here.
These are just a few of the many great ideas that emerged from our conversations. Thanks to everyone who gave of their time to meet with us. We plan to bring these ideas to SI leadership and to explore ways that we can implement them. We welcome you to reach out at any time to ask questions or provide suggestions on how we can help facilitate and support your research.