The Nicholas Institute formulated the Climate Research Innovation Seed Program (CRISP) to accelerate ongoing, climate-inflected research across Duke. CRISP offered eligible Duke faculty and research staff two categories of awards. The first category, Research Awards, incentivized new or continuing projects in just one of the Climate Commitment’s focus areas, Energy Transformation, providing recipients with up to $100,000 for larger-scale efforts. By contrast, the second category, Ideation Awards, encouraged projects in all four topic areas (energy, resilience, justice and data) and provided up to $20,000 for smaller-scale activities like workshops and brainstorming sessions. Taken together, the funding set aside for both categories totaled more than $600,000, with about 80 percent earmarked for Research Awards and the remaining 20 percent for Ideation Awards.
A total of 41 teams representing nearly every school in the University applied for the first round of CRISP funding. With additional support from the Fuqua School of Business, Bass Connections, and the Office of Interdisciplinary Studies, the Nicholas Institute ultimately granted $643,000 to twelve teams, six in each award category. Bringing together 50 scholars, these teams will investigate wide-ranging topics such as lower-cost, higher-efficiency solar cells; subsidies for energy-saving home renovations; the environmental, health and justice impacts of mining critical raw materials; and pastoral care for communities experiencing climate-related impacts such as sea level rise. Having begun work in Summer 2023, funded researchers will continue pursuing their projects through June of next year. In the meantime, the Nicholas Institute plans to launch a second round of CRISP with the larger Research Awards focused on questions of Climate Resilience. Learn more about the funded projects.