Today, we release inaugural CNI Senior Scholar Donald J. Waters’s final report: Meeting the Climate Emergency: University Information Infrastructure for Researching Wicked Problems, which is available at: https://doi.org/10.56561/LCOA2799 

Written with extensive community input, the report explores how research universities can tackle complex societal challenges, particularly climate change, a "wicked" problem involving multiple stakeholders and no clear solutions. U.S. research universities, with their broad disciplinary reach and research capacity, are well-positioned for this work but must expand their focus beyond STEM to include the social sciences, humanities, and public engagement. The report further highlights the evolving role of campus information specialists—university libraries, computing organizations, and related experts—who now provide critical research support beyond traditional collection-building, and it proposes that these entities should modify their research service strategies even further to focus more on university-supported centers and institutes that conduct interdisciplinary research.

We hope the report, which offers concrete steps by which universities could adapt their research infrastructure to address wicked problems more effectively, will be thought-provoking both for university-level leadership and for campus information specialist organizations as they evolve their strategies and priorities.

For additional background on Don’s work and the CNI Senior Scholar program, see: https://www.cni.org/events/cni-workshops/senior-scholars-program/information-infrastructure-to-address-societal-grand-challenges

Additionally, we point you to videos featuring recent presentations and discussions of the report: 

Don has done great work in framing and exploring these critical issues; he has my thanks for his rigorous, careful, and insightful analysis. 

Clifford Lynch

Director, CNI