A Proposed Workshop on Interdisciplinary Sustainable Solutions for Urban Systems in a Changing Climate

University Of Illinois At Urbana-Champaign, Urbana IL

Investigators

Abstract

This is a grant in support of a SUS workshop Research on urban sustainability often engages multiple disciplines, but this work is often limited in several important dimensions. First, much research on urban sustainability focuses on solutions that work for very large urban systems, leaving the problems of people in small or urban-fringe communities unaddressed. Second, scholarly researchers may tend to carry out work without engaging stakeholders in communities and industry. Third, many research disciplines in arts and the humanities are not integrated into sustainability research teams. This workshop targets to fill those gaps. It will: explore new solutions to sustainability challenges in water, energy, and climate adaptation; study how sustainability solutions must vary with the scale of an urban system; identify novel ways to integrate researchers from arts and the humanities into sustainability research teams; and study how research is altered by deep integration of researchers with stakeholders from business, communities, and NGOs. This workshop will develop implementable strategies to create and sustain a large scale research network that tackles urban sustainability in cities of all sizes with deep integration between researchers in many disciplines, municipalities, NGOs, and business partners. The workshop will identify critical gaps in research methodology and knowledge for solving sustainability problems in energy, water, and climate adaptation in a range of different types of urban systems, directing future sustainability research to improve the lives of more people in the coming time of climate change. Finally, early career researchers will gain networking and career development opportunities in a mode that is enhanced by reaching outside the academy. 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.