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Thursday, May 4, 2017
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
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New grants fund shared sustainability research

By JENNIFER MEER

Summer Managing News Editor

On Friday, four University of 

Michigan research projects received 
almost $500,000 total in grant money 

from the Graham Sustainability 
Institute— an initiative that supports 
research and education at the 
University under the Office of the 
Provost. All four studies are related to 
sustainability and are funded by the 
Institute’s Emerging Opportunities 
Program, which provides funding for 

University research in sustainability 
and 
promotes 
cross-disciplinary 

collaboration with external partners.

In 
the 
Graham 
Institute’s 

announcement 
of 
the 
awards, 

University President Mark Schlissel 
said the projects are reflective of the 
University’s work in sustainability.

“These 
projects 
reflect 
an 

exceptional range of sustainability 
initiatives being led by U-M faculty 
in partnership with local and global 
partners,” he said. “I’m confident the 
results from these efforts will lead to 
meaningful and lasting impacts.”

The awards consisted of two 

types of grants: Transformation 
and Catalyst. The Transformation 
Grant — the larger of the two — is 
a 
three-year, 
$150,000-per-year 

opportunity. 
According 
to 
an 

informational 
slideshow 
on 
the 

Emerging Opportunities Program, it 
supports collaborative research and 
assessment projects and “projects 
with 
potential 
for 
significantly 

greater impact” than Catalyst Grants. 
Catalyst grants — four to six of which 
are awarded each year — support 
more 
short-term 
collaborative 

projects; studies that receive these 
grants are typically at an earlier stage 
of research.

John Callewaert, the director 

of 
the 
Emerging 
Opportunities 

Program, said the program aims to 
encourage collaboration between 
disciplines — those from the School of 
Public Health, the School of Natural 
Resources and Environment and the 
Urban Planning Program, among 
others.

“We’re trying to leverage the 

breadth and depth of sustainability 
activity at the University,” he said. 
“In the request for proposals we put 
out, we say the team of researchers 
has to reflect at least two U of M 
units — (for example,) someone 
from Engineering and then someone 
from outside of Engineering … The 
reason for that is twofold. One is 
sustainability challenges are not just 
defined to one discipline… The other 
thing is there are few institutions like 
U of M that have the excellence across 
so many disciplines. What we’re 
doing is trying to do what we can to 
leverage that, bring that together and 
encourage it.”

Another element of the research 

projects, according to Callewaert, 
is they incorporate partners from 
outside the University.

Transformation grant
A project entitled “Leveraging 

existing data and insights into the 
policy process to accelerate progress 
toward achieving sustainable diets in 
the global south” received this year’s 
Transformation Grant.

In 
partnership 
with 
the 

International Center for Tropical 
Agriculture 
— 
a 
non-profit 

organization that works to improve 
farming techniques in developing 
countries — this study aims to analyze 

data on, and improve, sustainable diets 
in Kenya and Vietnam. According 
to the Michigan News, poor-quality 
diets underlie many diseases, while 
agricultural production contributes 
to greenhouse gas emissions. In 
Kenya and Vietnam, almost a quarter 
of preschool-age children are stunted 
and the countries face increasing 
obesity.

Andrew Jones, John G. Searle 

Associate Professor of Nutritional 
Sciences at the School of Public 
Health, is the project leader.

According to Jones, CIAT has 

committed to addressing sustainable 
food systems in Kenya and Vietnam. 
It is supported by the Agriculture 
for Nutrition and Health research 
program; both CIAT and A4NH are 
part of CGIAR — a global research 
partnership for sustainability. 

“They’re very much interested 

in understanding how to carry out 
research that looks at food systems 
and sustainability of food systems 
and also to develop, not just research 
for the sake of new knowledge, but 
also to put it into action and make 
sure it is applied for further human 
development goals,” he said.

Jones explained the researchers 

are looking at data on diets, nutrition 
of women and children and many 
aspects of food systems, such as 
environmental impacts of food and 
spatial data sets to help understand 
distribution of different aspects of 
food systems.

“We’re trying to bring together 

currently-available 
data 
to 

understand where the gaps are 
in terms of what our knowledge 
is 
around 
food 
systems 
and 

sustainability of food systems and 
also to understand what are the 
information needs of key stakeholders 
in these countries — decision-makers, 
in particular, who are going to be 
making decisions around what our 
food systems will look like ten years 
from now, twenty years from now, 
thirty years for now, and how to make 
them sustainable,” he said.

LSA senior Selena Joarder is the 

president of FeelGood, a student 
organization that seeks a “sustainable 
end to extreme poverty,” according to 
its website. 

In an email, Joarder noted the 

importance of the study’s impact on 
policy.

“Sustainable 
food 
systems 

and 
sustainable 
diets 
promote 

environmental 
and 
individual 

health,” she wrote. 

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

