SUGI: Sustainable Urbanization Global Initiative Food-Water-Energy Nexus Coordination

University Of Colorado At Boulder, Boulder CO

Investigators

Abstract

This project, led by the Future Earth Global Secretariat Hub at the University of Colorado, is to coordinate and support the Belmont Forum's Collaborative Research Action Sustainable Urbanization Global Initiative on the Food-Energy-Water Nexus. The Initiative involves fifteen major, international, transdisciplinary, research teams with operations in North America, Europe, Asia, Latin America and Africa: all working towards solutions on urban sustainability challenges that intersect with key aspects of food, water and energy systems. Twelve of the fifteen projects have a US partner or are US led. Activities organized and carried out by the University of Colorado Future Earth Hub provide connections and support that enables cross-project integration as well as training scientists in best practices in transdisciplinary research. Work also includes providing mechanisms for working across projects to strengthen research outcomes, supporting cross-team synthesis activities, and developing integrated multi-media communications campaigns to deliver targeted communication products to key audiences. Broder impacts of the work include increasing the diversity of university students engaged in sustainability science by providing them with a multiple year program of engagement with Belmont Forum-funded food-water-energy nexus research groups. The University of Colorado Hub of the Future Earth Secretariat is an organization that helps support and coordinate the work of transdisciplinary research teams. This project builds on the Hub's already-developed organizational structure and successes in coordinating and translating research science in sustainability into impactful traditional and innovative multimedia public outreach materials. For this project, the Hub will bring its organizational and staffing strengths to bear on coordinating activities and providing important synthesis venues for the fifteen research teams involved in the Belmont Forum's Collaborative Research Action Sustainable Urbanization Global Initiative on the Food-Energy-Water Nexus. The Colorado Hub of Future Earth will provide organizational support for workshops and other in-person interaction events to enhance internal research team and cross-project communications to ensure the research being carried out has maximum impact and there is transmission of information and findings between research teams. Coordination efforts involve surveys to identify challenges and issues that resonate within and between groups to promote shared learning. Resulting webinars and workshops create a learning forum that involves and benefits all parties. The Hub also provides training in best practices in transdisciplinary research and the co-development of research and policy. The Hub, in its facilitation role, will also support up to five synthesis grants, with each award supporting up to three synthesis meetings. In the final year, a capstone meeting of the research teams will be held where they will report on and integrate key research findings and lessons learned. The capstone event will also be used to assess, from the perspective of each team and on the part of the project overall, the effectiveness of the program and its impact. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.