*Sustainability Science **Fellowships **at Harvard University*
*Doctoral, Post-doctoral, and Mid-career Fellowships*
Due date for applications: January 15, 2012
The Sustainability Science
Program<http://www.hks.harvard.edu/centers/cid/programs/sustsci>at
Harvard University invites applications for resident fellowships in
sustainability science for the academic year beginning in September 2012.
The fellowship competition is open to advanced doctoral and post-doctoral
students, and to mid-career professionals engaged in research or practice
to facilitate the design, implementation, and evaluation of effective
interventions that promote sustainable development. Some of the most
serious constraints to sustainable development lie in the interconnections
among sectors: energy’s growing need for water; the impacts of water use on
human health; the competition for land among food, energy and conservation
initiatives; and the cumulative impact of all sectoral initiatives on
climate and other key environmental services. A central challenge moving
forward is to develop an integrated understanding of how sectoral
initiatives for sustainability can compete with and complement one another
in particular regional contexts. The 2012-13 fellowship competition will
therefore focus on regional initiatives pursing an integrated perspective
on sustainable development in India, China and Brazil. It will also include
a cross-cutting research initiative to integrate work focused on the theme
of Innovation for Sustainable Development. Preference in this year’s
competition will be given to applicants whose proposals complement one or
more of these four initiatives. The
Initiatives<http://www.hks.harvard.edu/centers/cid/programs/sustsci/grants-fellowships/…>(see
below), are led by Professors William
Clark<http://www.hks.harvard.edu/about/faculty-staff-directory/william-clark>,
Michael Kremer <http://www.economics.harvard.edu/faculty/kremer/>,
Henry Lee<http://www.hks.harvard.edu/about/faculty-staff-directory/henry-lee>,
Paul Moorcroft<http://www.oeb.harvard.edu/faculty/moorcroft/moorcroft-oeb.html>,
and Rohini Pande<http://www.hks.harvard.edu/about/faculty-staff-directory/rohini-pande>.
The Program is also open, however, to strong proposals in any area of
sustainability science. In addition to general funds available to support
this fellowship offering, special funding for the Giorgio Ruffolo
Fellowships in Sustainability
Science<http://www.hks.harvard.edu/centers/cid/programs/sustsci/grants-fellowships#3>
is
available to support citizens of Italy, Brazil, India, China or developing
countries who are therefore especially encouraged to apply.
*
*
*For more information on the fellowships application process see **
http://www.cid.harvard.edu/sustsci/fellowship. Applications are due January
15, 2012 and decisions will be announced by March 2012.*
*Brazil: Sustainable Development of the Amazon and its surrounding regions:
The interplay of climate, hydrology, and land use*
*Faculty leader*:* *Paul
Moorcroft<http://www.oeb.harvard.edu/faculty/moorcroft/moorcroft-oeb.html>,
Professor of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology
Ongoing agricultural expansion and other land use changes in Amazonia and
the surrounding regions are expected to continue over the next several
decades as global demand for food and biofuel increases and regional
economies expand. The conversion of natural forest and cerrado ecosystems
to pastureland and agricultural crops creates warmer and drier atmospheric
conditions than the native vegetation. In addition, human induced climate
change arising from increasing levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere
is also expected to push the Amazon region towards a warmer and drier
state. In a number of recent climate modeling studies, the Amazon has been
shown to exhibit two contrasting states for the water cycle and ecosystems
of the region: a moist forested state, and an alternate drier and warmer
state with sparser vegetation. This has raised the question of whether
deforestation and conversion to agricultural land cause the
atmosphere-vegetation-hydrologic system of the Amazon to switch from its
current moist state to the warmer and drier one? And if so, will this new
state have sufficient precipitation to sustain the native forest and
productivity of adjacent agricultural areas? In this study we propose to
answer these questions by developing a coupled vegetation-atmosphere model
to investigate the stability of the Amazonian hydrologic system (“rivers in
the sky” as well as flows on the ground) to scenarios of land use and
climate change . We expect to come closer to capturing the true response
and thresholds of the Amazonian system than previous studies because our
model has a more realistic representation of the dynamic response of the
native vegetation, and the study will incorporate a range of land change
scenarios. By doing so we will be able to answer the question: How much
deforestation is too much? Post-doc candidates who have experience with
integrated land-water-climate models and/or experience analyzing patterns
and trends of land use and land use change are particularly encouraged to
apply.
* *
*India: Building public-private partnerships to promote sustainable
development in India*
*Faculty leader*: Rohini
Pande<http://www.hks.harvard.edu/about/faculty-staff-directory/rohini-pande>,
Mohammed Kamal Professor of Public Policy
Sustainable development, by its nature, requires government and private
actors to work together. Externalities from rapid growth, such as the
depletion of subsidized resources, widespread air and water pollution or
unsustainable energy use, arise from a joint failure of government and
industry to create an economy where the most profitable action is also best
socially. The India Initiative will address sustainability problems in
India of both national and global import. The motivation for this research
program is to work with governments to channel the enterprising potential
of the private sector to correct such externalities. The research will
address questions in sustainable environmental regulation and provide
evidence on how public-private partnerships can contribute to solving
existing challenges. We focus on three research areas. First, existing
environmental regulations are weakly enforced by possibly under-resourced
regulators, leading to poor environmental quality. Second, traditional
regulations, even if strengthened, are not the right tools to address many
of India’s pollution problems. Third, from the perspective of
sustainability of resource use, India’s inefficient and rapidly growing
energy consumption threatens to undermine its own development by
contributing to global climate change. The research team will partner with
government and private institutions in order to conduct field trials of
innovative environmental policies to provide rigorous evidence on the
impact of these policies for sustainable development. Doctoral,
post-doctoral, and mid-career candidates are encouraged to apply.
*China: Energy in China: Environmental implications and management for
sustainable development*
*Faculty leader*: Henry
Lee<http://www.hks.harvard.edu/about/faculty-staff-directory/henry-lee>,
Jassim M. Jaidah Director, Environment and Natural Resources Program
The China Initiative will address the environmental implications of
electrification and other energy policies in China and explore how China
can manage these implications. Fellows will work to identify and promote
policies that will contribute to thoughtful use of China's natural
resources (e.g., water, land) and/or the adoption of cleaner and less
carbon-intensive industrial and energy technologies. Research areas
include, but are not limited to: analyzing the impact of energy and
industrial policies on water scarcity; assessing barriers to the
development or deployment of cleaner energy technologies; and studying the
impact of industrialization on health and fragile ecosystems.
Post-doctoral and mid-career candidates, especially those who speak
Chinese, are particularly encouraged to apply.
*Innovation for Sustainability: Enhancing the Production of Essential
Global Public Goods*
*Faculty leaders*:
William Clark<http://www.hks.harvard.edu/about/faculty-staff-directory/william-clark>,
Brooks Professor of International Science, Public Policy and Human
Development
Michael Kremer, <http://www.economics.harvard.edu/faculty/kremer/>Gates
Professor of Developing Countries and Professor of Economics**
This Initiative seeks to transform our understanding of the processes
governing innovation in the production of global public goods (GPGs) needed
for a transition toward sustainability. In particular, we aim to discover
how innovation systems can be designed that will simultaneously stimulate
needed inventions and promote widespread and equitable access to the fruits
of those inventions. The last two decades have served up a surprising
number of ad-hoc operational experiments in improving the production of
sustainability GPGs on topics as different as anti-retroviral medicines for
HIV/AIDS, the development of gene banks, and the deployment of famine early
warning systems. Those experiments, however, are generally poorly
described, little known beyond their respective sectors and therefore not
contributing as much as they might to understanding or promoting the
production of GPGs essential for sustainability. This project is an effort
to move to the next level of integrated and synthetic understanding. We
propose a 3 track approach: 1*) Reconceptualizing innovation of global
public goods for sustainability: *We will construct, apply, evaluate and
revise an integrated framework for understanding the innovation process
involved in the production of sustainability GPGs. *2) Comparing sectoral
experiences*: We will analyze a global cross-section of ad hoc experiments
in new ways of providing sustainability GPGs using a template. 3) *Conducting
in-depth empirical studies*: We will carry out a set of detailed empirical
studies to test specific hypotheses about successful production of
sustainability GPGs that arise from our sectoral comparisons. This research
will employ our conceptual framework to pose similar questions across
sectors and countries about how the system of GPG provision has responded
to the full range of “push” and “pull” mechanisms that we will have
identified through our sectoral comparisons. Doctoral, post-doctoral, and
mid-career candidates are encouraged to apply.
William C. Clark
Harvey Brooks Professor of International Science, Public Policy and Human
Development
John F. Kennedy School of Government
Harvard University
79 John F. Kennedy Street
Cambridge MA 02138 USA
(1)-617-495-3981 william_clark(a)harvard.edu
Personal web page:
http://www.hks.harvard.edu/about/faculty-staff-directory/william-clark
Sustainability Science Program:
http://www.cid.harvard.edu/sustsci/index.html
*Bate-Papo (Portuguese conversation practice)*
Practice your Portuguese and discuss Brazil and other Portuguese-speaking
countries and cultures at this informal roundtable. Everyone is welcome!
Friday, December 2nd, 3:00-4:30 p.m.
CGIS South, Room S-216, 1730 Cambridge Street, Cambridge
Open to the public. No registration required.
Contact: brazil(a)fas.harvard.edu
Salgadinhos and guaraná will be served.
*Co-sponsored by the DRCLAS Brazil Studies Program and the Portuguese
section of the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures at Harvard.*