One of the nation’s leading research universities, UNC sponsored more than $610 million of research on a wide range of topics in 2007. Sustainability-related research has increased tremendously in recent years, drawing on faculty, staff and student expertise in departments throughout the university. The following organizations conduct sustainability-related research at Carolina.
Active Living by Design
Increasing physical activity through community design, public policies, and innovative communication strategies is the goal of Active Living by Design, part of UNC's School of Public Health. Chapel Hill is both the national headquarters of the Active Living by Design program and home to one of the 25 nationwide partnerships funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
Go! Chapel Hill works with parents and children to identify and create safe walking routes to school. The Active Neighborhoods program has assessed the pedestrian infrastructure in several mixed use neighborhoods and recommended capital improvements. A new downtown walking map developed by Active Businesses encourages employees to engage in physical activity during work breaks.
Carolina Environmental Bioinformatics Research Center
Using computer models to study how chemicals adversely affect health and the environment is the role of the Carolina Environmental Bioinformatics Research Center. The EPA's computational toxicology program awarded UNC $4.5 million over five years to establish the center. The results of this research may improve both human health and ecological risk assessments. The Center brings together expertise in biostatistics, computational biology, chemistry, and computer science to advance the field of computational toxicology.
Center for Community Capitalism
The vision driving research at the Center for Community Capitalism is that having a chance to own a home, build assets, and pass those assets on to your children is the way to build a better life. Yet about one-third of U.S. families maintain no savings and no financial assets. To date the Center has secured more than $10 million for research that focuses on the intersection of community development and private enterprise.
Center for Environmental Modeling for Policy Development
The Center on Environmental Modeling for Policy Developmentis a team of scientists and engineers dedicated to supporting sound policy making through the development and application of environmental software and models. Housed in the UNC’s Institute for the Environment, projects include developing and implementing advanced air quality models and researching concepts of intercontinental transport of pollutants and their climatic effects, among others.
Center on Poverty, Work, and Opportunity
Created in 2005, the Center on Poverty, Work & Opportunityis housed in the UNC Law School. The Center’s mission is to actively address and raise awareness about the pressing needs of those currently living at or below the poverty level and to provide an interdisciplinary forum to examine innovative and practical ideas to move more Americans out of poverty.
In 2006, the Center launched the New Orleans Recovery Initiative(NORI), which is designed to connect the expertise of the University’s faculty, staff, and students with community groups currently rebuilding New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.
Center for Sustainable Community Design
The Center for Sustainable Community Design explores how communities throughout North Carolina and the nation can redesign their buildings, transportation systems and other infrafstructure in order to reduce their ecological footprints. The Center is directed by Phil Berke, Professor of City and Regional Planning.
Center for Sustainable Energy, Environment, and Economic Development (CSEEED)
Housed in the Institute for the Environment, the Center for Sustainable Energy, Environment, and Economic Development produces research, education and outreach on all aspects of energy use. Within the Center, teams focus on developing new energy technologies, examining the health effects of energy use, and identifying public policy and market incentives to promote sustainable energy use and generation.
Center for Sustainable Enterprise
Housed in the Kenan-Flagler Business School, the Center for Sustainable Enterprise (CSE) was founded in 2001 to advance sustainable business practices. The CSE works with faculty, students, and other researchers to develop and publish case studies, technical papers, models, and field research.
In 2007 the Center unveiled the Knowledge Bank, a free educational resource containing scholarly research from UNC authors on a broad range of sustainability topics. Users can search the full offerings of MBA white papers, faculty articles and case studies available in the CSE Knowledge Bank.
Center for Urban and Regional Studies (CURS)
Founded in 1957, the Center for Urban and Regional Studiesconducts research on urban, regional, and rural planning and policy issues. The center aims to generate knowledge about urban and regional processes and problems in order to build healthier and more sustainable communities.
Areas of research include economic development, environmental protection, housing and community development, poverty and equity, sustainable development, and transportation.
Institute for Advanced Materials, Nanoscience and Technology
The Institute for Advanced Materials, Nanoscience and Technologycoordinates research across the internationally recognized strengths of UNC-Chapel Hill on polymers, nanomaterials, and nano-biosciences areas.
Inter-Disciplinary Obesity Center (IDOC)
With funding from the National Institutes of Health's (NIH) Roadmap Initiative, UNC has developed a critical mass of expertise in the obesity area with nearly 80 researchers from UNC, Duke and neighboring institutions who comprise the Interdisciplinary Obesity Center or IDOC. With members from 23 departments and seven schools, IDOC faculty attempt to more thoroughly understand the causes of obesity and discover innovative methods of obesity prevention and treatment.