Announcing UCI Solutions that Scale
Human activities are disrupting and degrading Earth’s natural systems, thereby threatening the health and safety of both humans and many other species; the security of our food, energy, and water systems; and long-term societal goals of prosperity, justice, and peace. Solutions to global environmental problems exist, but they are not obvious or easy to implement. Both the problems and solutions are complex and multidimensional, and will differently affect individuals, communities, businesses, and nations who all have distinct concerns, interests, and priorities. Moreover, communication and trust among these different stakeholders, scientists, and policymakers are often lacking.
In an effort to directly confront these challenges, we have created the UCI Solutions that Scale (StS) initiative. We believe that universities—and especially diverse, public ones like UCI—are uniquely suited to muster and coordinate interdisciplinary expertise; to build bridges and trust among disparate communities and decision makers; and to be the intellectual and cultural proving ground for solutions to the world’s most pressing environmental problems. In short, our goal is globally actionable science and broader trust in it.
StS strives to be a campus, regional, and global nexus for climate change solutions activities and aims to provide and create comprehensive solutions through three different arenas: education and research; public policy; and corporate industry.
In the spirit of collaboration, we invite all interested UCI faculty to become affiliated with StS. By supporting and connecting researchers from a broad range of disciplines, we will maximize the impact of UCI’s interdisciplinary environmental research and educational programs. To learn more about the benefits of becoming a faculty affiliate please click here.
One of the first goals of StS include implementing a pilot graduate fellowship program, specifically designed to support convergent climate research involving multiple schools and departments. This pilot program will be the first of its kind at UCI with leadership from several schools offering funding to create these fellowships. A follow up zotmail will be sent soon with more information regarding the application process for the StS graduate fellowship program.
We will also be hosting an open seminar series that will feature key faculty members of StS in addition to select industry partners that have expressed interest in partnering with UCI and their faculty on this initiative. More information is forthcoming.
Last, I would like to thank the senior leadership and key faculty members of the Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Science, the Henry Samueli School of Engineering, the School of Social Ecology, and the Program in Public Health for their commitment and participation in this very important endeavor.
James Bullock
Dean, School of Physical Sciences
Professor, Department of Physics & Astronomy
University of California, Irvine