With high levels of public environmental awareness, the University of Birmingham and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign have an extremely timely opportunity to work in partnership and make a powerful statement about our intentions to help tackle the global climate emergency and UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The Accelerating Climate Action group activities and approach will build on research and education links including the Birmingham Institute for Sustainability & Climate Action (BISCA), Birmingham Energy Institute (BEI), the Institute for Sustainability, Energy, and Environment (iSEE), and Prairie Research Institute (PRI).

The group activities will support sustainability research and teaching communities at both institutions to work with partners from the Global South in the lead-up to COP30 in Brazil. The teams would prepare impactful briefing papers, which would be synthesized into a report to be launched for the COP, on how climate action and sustainable development must be accelerated to put the world on track to meet the Paris and Sustainable Development Goals.

Focus Areas

• ‘New Climate Solutions’: to allow a wide range of possible projects to come forward that respond to challenges affecting global communities, specifically addressing climate change, in terms of mitigation or adaptation measures.
• ‘Food, Energy, Water Nexus’: addressing the issues of meeting societal needs where there are interdependent and possibly conflicting priorities for sustainable development, which exist in the Global South and North.

Key features include:

• The integration of institutions from Global North and Global South: building on partners from each university to create networks of learning between and within global regions.
• Prioritizing just and equitable transitions ensuring the impact of projects on all sections of communities are thoroughly considered.

The initiative will show how research, teaching, and policy driven by both institutions can deliver benefits to communities in affected areas, with the collaborations formed during the process going on to apply for national and international funding.

Project Leads

University of Birmingham

• Aleksandra Cavoski
• Sophie Comer-Warner
• David M. Hannah
• Julia Myatt
• Francis Pope
• Jonathan Radcliffe

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

• Praveen Kumar
• Warren Lavey
• Leon Liebenberg

Project Summaries

Process

Group members are enthusiastic to engage the full spectrum of researchers, supporting new collaborations to form, and building on existing successful partnerships.

• For stage one of the initiative (June/July 2024), the two institutions will organize an online networking event for their communities to develop collaborations with each other.
• In the second stage groups formed at the networking event would work together to develop a two-page ‘Expression of Interest’ (EoI). This would outline the proposed topic, how the work would deliver impact (from the report, and the collaborative working, e.g. for future funding), partners from the Global South, and costs, submitted by October 2024. The groups would be required to have partners from each university and at least one from an ODA-eligible country.
• The EoIs will be assessed by a joint panel from both institutions, with 6 – 8 being selected for the next stage by December 2024. The successful EoIs will be balanced across research areas, and to ensure new partnerships are formed.
• In stage three, from January – April 2025, the successful groups from the second stage will co-create their reports, with funding for travel to enable partners to come together for meetings/workshops. The groups will be expected to draft reports in the region 6,000 – 8,000 words, and summary of c. 2,000 words for the synthesis report (with additional figures etc).
• By summer 2025, reports from each of the groups will be submitted and professionally edited and published. A synthesis report will be prepared by October 2025.
• Finally, the report will be launched in an online event for COP30 in November 2025, aligned with activities by both institutions.

The teams will be given support from the relevant institutes including:

• Institute of Global Innovation (Birmingham)
• Brazil Institute (Birmingham)
• China Institute (Birmingham)
• India Institute (Birmingham)
• BISCA (Birmingham)
• Center for Global Studies (Illinois)
• Illinois International
• Illinois Global Institute

Projected Outcomes

1. Increased visibility of sustainability research and teaching between Birmingham, Illinois, and institutions in the Global South, which in itself will enable the formation of new links and relationships, with a particular focus on new partnerships and early-career researchers.
2. Better understanding of the external funding opportunities and challenges to leverage the acknowledgement of sustainability’s significance and develop further funding proposals.  
3. The launch of a synthesis report, between Birmingham, Illinois, and global partners, at COP30 will draw attention to the challenges facing the world, as evidenced by academic expertise, and show the universities to be at the forefront of addressing these challenges, in partnership with global communities.

Throughout the process, impactful content and joint perspective pieces will be produced (e.g. press releases) that gives exposure to research teams and universities.

Sustainability Seed Funding

As part of this Signature Initiative, seed funding is available for collaborative projects focused on sustainability. The Sustainability Seed Funding aims to support collaborative teams from both universities to work with researchers in the Global South in the lead-up to COP30 in Brazil in November 2025.

Through the collaboration, teams will prepare impactful briefing papers on how climate action and sustainable development must be accelerated to put the world on track to meet the Paris and Sustainable Development Goals. Teams with diverse geographic and disciplinary representation are strongly encouraged.