SRS RN: Transforming Rural-Urban Systems: Trajectories for Sustainability in the Intermountain West

Catastrophic wildfires, dwindling water supplies, and rapid urban population growth are some of the most pressing challenges of the Intermountain West (IMW). However, the current services and resources available to urban and rural systems (URS) in the IMW leave communities ill-equipped to face these issues. The Transforming Rural-Urban Systems: Trajectories for Sustainability in the Intermountain West Research Network (TRUSTS-RN) is a transdisciplinary research effort representing diverse communities, sectors, disciplines, and backgrounds aimed at improving regional sustainability.

Using a convergent research and education plan, the Network focuses on how headwaters and headwater dependent systems, regional food-energy-water systems, and innovative institutions and approaches to governance can be integrated to help direct URS along trajectories that result in a sustainable future for humans and the environment. Network research projects and educational activities are designed to co- produce knowledge with regional partners and utilize a novel framework for Guided Transformation (GT) that incorporates diverse perspectives, includes Indigenous and place-based knowledge, and values community and environmental well-being.

Over the course of five years, the Network aims to: (1) improve understanding of inter-linked URS system feedbacks, processes and actors; (2) create a diverse and engaged network of IMW partners to advance understanding of community needs and explore sustainable solutions; (3) train a new cohort of scientists and leaders with expertise in convergent, complex systems thinking; and (4) record and share the processes for developing sustainable URS through a GT framework.

This Network uses a convergent research approach to explore how a GT framework can be employed to build synergistic system connectivity across urban-rural gradients to promote sustainable cities, landscapes, and livelihoods across the IMW. The TRUSTS-RN’s diverse academic disciplines and non- academic partnerships will embrace and integrate western and Indigenous cultural knowledge and use a system-of-systems research approach to advance the theory and applied knowledge of the dynamics, resilience, and transformational opportunities of URS.

In so doing, the Network will increase traditional and western knowledge of regional sustainability with cultural open-mindedness and scientific granularity, while identifying and addressing real-world ecosystem issues and community challenges. Through broad cross-disciplinary integration, the Network targets creation of impact through fundamental and use-inspired science projects, advancing sustainability science through regional-scale implementation of projects in the IMW.

The Network intends to advance GT theories for collaboratively and equitably transforming URS structures and processes towards sustainability. This project is co-funded by the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR).

This project is also co-funded by the HSI Program which aims to enhance undergraduate STEM education, broaden participation in STEM, and build capacity at HSIs. Achieving these aims, given the diverse nature and context of the HSIs, requires innovative approaches that incentivize institutional and community transformation and promote fundamental research (i) on engaged student learning, (ii) about what it takes to diversify and increase participation in STEM effectively, and (iii) that improves our understanding of how to build institutional capacity at HSIs.

Projects supported by the HSI Program will also draw from these approaches to generate new knowledge on how to achieve these aims.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.