SDSS Solution Areas - Platforms and Tools RFP

The Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability is embarking on the next frontiers of urgent work in sustainability through Solution Areas — a new portfolio of eight solutions-oriented research efforts that will amplify impact on a dynamic and interconnected set of sustainability challenges.

Within the Platforms and Tools for Decision Making Solution Area, we aim to inspire and nurture transdisciplinary research collaborations organized around a decade-long research horizon with multiple cycles of projects dedicated to producing evidence, knowledge, and solutions meeting the needs of decision-makers, community members, and other actors to address sustainability challenges with sensors, data, and analysis. 

Strategic Focus 

We are facing a challenging time for planet Earth. At the global and local scales, climate change and human activity are causing significant perturbations in many of the natural systems essential for sustaining life. 

Under the Platforms and Tools for Monitoring Decision-Making Solution Area (Platforms and Tools), we are launching two Integrative Projects that will explore ways in which data acquired with sensors - satellite, airborne, land/water-based - and the accompanying data analysis and modeling workflows, can support the adaptive management of planetary health and human activities. Sensor-based systems will transform the approach to addressing critical issues related to climate change, sustainability, and equity by providing the essential measurements needed, with the spatial and temporal sampling needed, to inform the development and implementation of new policies.

This RFP and subsequent award process will help bring faculty together to advance the development and field-testing of these sensor-based systems that cover the spectrum from sensors to solutions. 

Stanford faculty interested in sensor-based systems for sustainability have been meeting for over two years to develop strategic locations and systems for development - matching important and urgent sustainability issues that require systemic response, with Stanford faculty expertise and partnerships with external communities and organizations. This process uncovered potential areas for Stanford faculty, working closely with outside partners, to build large ambitious projects.

These areas are:

• Taking the Pulse of the Watershed

• Taking the Pulse of the Coastal Ocean

Concept Notes are due April 14, 2025, see the Workshop Application Process section for further detail. We invite Concept notes from all faculty who wish to be involved in the Integrative Projects, including those who would require funding to participate, and those with existing funded projects that would require no/little additional funding.

Following submission and review of Concept Notes, a facilitated workshop will be held for each Integrative Project in April/May.

See the Request for Proposals for process and requirement details.