Donald Waters
Senior Scholar
Coalition for Networked Information
In late 2022, the Coalition for Networked Information (CNI) launched the CNI Senior Scholars Program. The program is designed to facilitate efforts to explore broad research questions that align with CNI’s program and interests. The inaugural CNI Senior Scholar, Donald Waters, is studying the information infrastructure that universities need to best address climate change as a grand challenge of immense public interest. Relying on background literature and extensive interviews with scholars and information experts at ten selected universities, Waters is now preparing a final report. The briefing session will present and invite discussion of his findings, beginning with a definition of the “wicked” nature of climate change as a grand challenge and an outline of mission-driven efforts of universities to scale up and better integrate faculty research on this complex issue. He will suggest that libraries and information technology organizations could contribute substantially to this scaling and integration by: (a) focusing on the requirements of interdisciplinary research; (b) supporting such research in specific university centers and institutes; (c) enhancing support for faculty collection and analysis of data; and (d) facilitating faculty engagement with local communities.
https://www.cni.org/topics/ci/information-infrastructure-to-address-societal-grand-challenges
