Category Archives: Academic Groups

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2013 Roy Family Award for Environmental Partnership

June 30, 2012 – 11:49 am

The Harvard Kennedy School is collecting nominations for the 2013 Roy Family Award for Environmental Partnership. The award is presented every two years to an outstanding public-private partnership project that enhances environmental quality through the use of novel and creative approaches.

The mission of the Roy Family Award is to encourage governments, companies, and organizations worldwide to push the boundaries of creativity and take risks that result in significant changes that benefit the environment; and to leverage greater action. Just one example: after the Mexico City Metrobus project received the 2009 award, the city announced the development of two additional Metrobus BRT lines – an expansion that would not have been politically feasible without the recognition from the Roy Award and Harvard University.
We need your help to identify the most innovative and impactful partnerships around the world. Partnerships should be unusually creative and provide a model for improvement that is transferable to other issues or geographic regions. Partnerships can consist of individuals or academic, business, civic, government, and non-profit groups. Projects can be domestic or international in scope, should involve a novel leap in creativity, and should foster significant positive changes that improve environmental quality or protect natural resources. They can be either domestic or international in scope.

We hope to receive nominations that represent the full spectrum of work being done in this field, and we need your help both in identifying possible recipients and in passing on the announcement to others working in this area. Due to your significant involvement with environmental issues and activities, we believe your participation is essential to recognize the partnerships making a difference.

A full description of the Roy Family Award, including project eligibility and award criteria is available on our website. If you have additional questions or comments, please do not hesitate to contact me. We would like to narrow our pool of applicants by the end of the summer, so please send nomination suggestions by September 15, 2012.

Thank you for your help,
Amanda

Amanda Swanson Sardonis
Assistant Director, Environment and Natural Resources Program
Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
Harvard Kennedy School
617-495-1351
amanda_sardonis@harvard.edu
belfercenter.org/enrp

Roy Award Winners:

The first Roy Family Award was presented in 2003 to a coalition of the American Electric Power Company, Pacific Corp and British Petroleum, Fundacion Amigos de la Naturaleza, the Nature Conservancy, and the government of Bolivia. It recognized their joint efforts to design and implement a carbon sequestration project with unique promise to attain political and economic sustainability while protecting one of the world’s most valuable rain forests.

In 2007, the Roy Family Award was presented to Energiebau Solarstromsysteme, a German solar technology provider, and the non-profit InWEnt-Capacity Building International for their joint efforts in providing reliable, renewable electricity to rural African villages through a system of solar panel technology combined with modified diesel motors running on pure plant oil from the jatropha nut.

In 2009, the Roy Family Award was given to the Mexico City Metrobus, a Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system that reduces air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, while improving the quality of life and transportation options in one of the largest cities in the world.

The 2011 winner is Refrigerants, Naturally! a coalition of four companies – The Coca-Cola Company, McDonald’s, Unilever, and PepsiCo – and two international environmental organizations – Greenpeace and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) – whose mission is to combat climate change and ozone layer depletion by developing natural refrigeration technologies that are safe, reliable, affordable and energy efficient.

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Academic Groups iFind Newmo International Mobility and Sustainable Transport

Roads That Serve The Neediest Users, Yet All Too Often Kill Them In The Process

April 25, 2010 – 9:52 am

Download PDF: Roads That Serve The Neediest Users, Yet All Too Often Kill Them In The Process

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Academic Groups Development Organizations iFind Newmo International

Children, Transport and Mobility in Sub-Saharan Africa: Developing a Child-Centred Evidence Base to Improve Policy and Change Thinking Across Africa, Department of International Development

April 25, 2010 – 9:51 am

Project outline:

The project focuses on the mobility constraints faced by girl and boy children in accessing health, educational and other facilities in sub-Saharan Africa, the lack of direct information on how these constraints impact on children’s current and future livelihood opportunities, and the lack of guidelines on how to tackle them. The aim is to provide an evidence base strong enough to substantially improve policy in the three focus countries – Ghana, Malawi and South Africa – and to change thinking across Africa.

The project has tested an innovative two-strand child-centred methodology, involving both adult and child researchers. In addition to a more conventional interview study with children, parents, teachers and community leaders conducted by adult academic researchers, there has been a complementary component of truly child-centred research conducted by child researchers (facilitated by adults). This takes forward an earlier small pilot of the latter approach in Ghana and South Africa. The aim has been to apply the successful child researcher pilot, while ensuring achievement of a substantial and comparable quantitative and qualitative dataset across the three countries from which policy guidelines could be established. [A paper on working with child researchers has been published in Children’s Geographies (vol. 7,4: 467-480) and another will appear shortly in the American Journal of Community Psychology. A paper on one key method employed in our study – mobile ethnographies – has also now been published (Children’s Geographies 8,2: 91-105).

An inception workshop took place in Blantyre, Malawi in September/October 2006, enabling key country researchers to meet and review their research plans with each other and with the UK team and Professor Michael Bourdillon (who is advising on the research component with children). The inception workshop included children who had been involved as researchers in the previous project in South Africa and Ghana plus Malawian children who wished to participate in the new study. Teachers from Ghana, South Africa and Malawi were present to act as chaperones and to provide translation where necessary. The workshop comprised a mix of joint meetings with all researchers and individual meetings of the two strands (i.e. when children and their teachers undertook activities separately from the adult researcher group).

Visit: Children, Transport and Mobility in Sub-Saharan Africa: Developing a Child-Centred Evidence Base to Improve Policy and Change Thinking Across Africa, Department of International Development

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Academic Groups iFind Newmo International

Footfalls: obstacle course to livable cities

April 25, 2009 – 9:49 am

This recent CSE study provides detailed analysis of walking conditions in Indian cities. It indicates that walkability is overlooked and undervalued in transport planning, and that improved walkability is justified for equity and efficiency sake. Provides specific recommendations for improving walking conditions to address a variety of planning objectives.

Visit: Footfalls: obstacle course to livable cities

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