Collaborating with a purpose

• In its second year, the UC Irvine Climate Collaboration is going strong, building up interdisciplinary climate change research teams in response to the needs of regional partners.
• In Q&A, UCICC director Brett Sanders discusses the impetus for starting the organization, how it functions, and what he and his collaborators hope to achieve.

The UC Irvine Climate Collaboration was launched in early 2025 with a goal of tapping into diverse talents across campus to bring creative and innovative perspectives together around the profound climate challenges facing humanity today.

The organization focuses resources on building interdisciplinary collaborations with external partners, a model designed to allow UC Irvine to bring trusted, scientific information forward for decision-makers, while preparing UC Irvine's talented and motivated student body for tomorrow's sustainability workforce needs.

Here, UC Irvine Climate Collaboration director Brett Sanders, Chancellor's Professor of civil and environmental engineering, explains how and why the initiative was founded on two principles: interdisciplinary collaboration and responsiveness to the front-line needs of regional partners in governments, community groups and businesses.

What spurred the origination of the UC Irvine Climate Collaboration?

There was an interest at the university's leadership level in doing this. They acknowledged enormous strengths in climate research across many different schools on campus and an opportunity for greater impact through an effort that brought our strengths together.

A task force convened by [Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost Hal Stern] emphasized the need for a strong, interdisciplinary approach coupled with engagement with external partners. Collaborations allow us to look at problems in new ways and see the big steps that are possible, which previously weren't clear. The whole point of the UC Irvine Climate Collaboration is to bring together these different perspectives and areas of expertise in creative ways that move the needle with respect to finding solutions to the profound challenges we face today due to a warming planet.

What's an example of a problem that can be resolved through this sort of collaboration?

One of the most urgent issues we face in Southern California is adapting to heightened wildfire risks, which is driving insurance costs much higher and making some areas unlivable. In Orange County, we have an opportunity to create some of the best fire risk models available anywhere by bringing together on-the-ground land management experience with expertise in fire dynamics.

We have fire prediction expertise in engineering with Amir AghaKouchak [Chancellor's Professor of civil and environmental engineering] and Tirtha Banerjee [associate professor of civil and environmental engineering]; world-class wildfire behavior scientists like Jim Randerson [Ralph J. and Carol M. Cicerone Chair in Earth System Science] with a deep understanding of differing fire regimes between summer heat waves and Santa Ana winds; and biological scientists like Sarah Kimball [associate professor of ecology and evolutionary biology] who have worked closely with regional landowners who manage the open space.

With the ability to shape the distribution of fuel, an understanding of the types of fire behaviors to expect, and predictive models that can tell us what exactly is at risk and when, the region can be better positioned to proactively manage wildfire risks while also preserving the critical natural functions of these important natural landscapes around us - and preserving the incredible quality of life that we enjoy here in Southern California.

What are the specific ways in which the UC Irvine Climate Collaboration works with outside agencies?

Research teams connect directly with outside agencies and pull them into their research process. This usually begins with research meetings that are structured around the discussion of a particular topic, with the aim of both learning about the agency concerns and needs and sharing a potential research direction. If that goes well, then the research teams can adapt and refine their research questions and approach, and through continued meetings and interactions alongside research progress, the collaboration can make significant headway toward new knowledge and tools that are responsive to the agency interests.

Jacob Samson (center), a graduate student in mechanical and aerospace engineering, leads a presentation about UC Irvine Climate Collaboration research to improve the resiliency of California's coastline at a 2025 event in San Clemente. The UCICC operates on dual principles of interdisciplinary collaboration and engagement with external partners, including government agencies, community groups and businesses. Steve Zylius / UC Irvine

Over time, and based on interactions with many different stakeholders, this process also helps researchers develop quite sophisticated, systems-level knowledge about a problem. What emerges is a set of interconnected problems, and from a solutions perspective, you start seeing entry points with the potential for cascading benefits. For example, as a very simple case, you can't really disentangle the need for housing and the protection of the public from extreme events, and so real progress comes from projects that look at these issues together.

How does the Climate Collaboration organize this research?

We have created an annual call for proposals that invites teams to put together a project idea following a recipe. The ingredients include faculty from multiple schools or disciplines, external partners who are engaged and driving the research with an urgent need, and an educational piece that involves UC Irvine students.

It's well known that early-stage research collaborations can strongly benefit from an infusion of resources, or seed funding. The funding not only is necessary to employ researchers who carry out the work but brings accountability to the research team around a shared purpose, and it works to strengthen relations with external partners. You might be surprised by the disciplinary differences in how researchers look at a problem, and so these early collaborations are essential for getting research teams on the same page to the point that they effectively learn from each other. And that's when the magic happens - and truly transformative ideas begin to develop. These are the ideas that will win over funding agencies and bring in the larger grants capable of sustaining research progress for several years.

What types of funding agencies are you targeting?

We've done extremely well at UC Irvine securing basic research funding from federal agencies including the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, but this past year has shown us that those funding sources are vulnerable to political changes. So while we will continue to pursue these resources and adapt to the changing research priorities of the nation, we can also benefit from stronger ties to state and local entities as well as the business community.

California is now the fourth-largest economic power in the world, and its resource agencies are tackling climate change head-on. We imagine a future where more UC Irvine researchers are working alongside these agencies to build knowledge and tools and advance policies that help to secure a bright and safe future.

We're also partnering with Beall Applied Innovation to ensure that faculty are aware of the opportunities to find support within the private sector and create new businesses that operationalize our knowledge and technologies.

How is the UC Irvine Climate Collaboration being received by your colleagues and associates?

One of the biggest positives is that younger faculty are extremely receptive to this initiative. They're excited to meet new faculty in other schools and seek out promising opportunities. In fact, many of our new faculty are graduates of interdisciplinary graduate programs and bring training that allows them to more easily work on teams and with external partners.

Students are also super excited about the Climate Collaboration. Young people want to dedicate their professional careers to addressing climate change - they know how important this issue is - but they also feel the fragmentation of the climate and sustainability community across many different schools. We've recently launched the Climate Collaboration Student Council to respond to this need, creating a connective tissue among the student body that links students at every school on campus working in the climate space. They also now feel like they are part of something bigger. If you're in, say, social ecology and you meet someone from the arts, it can be just a fantastic way to expand your imagination. We can greatly enrich the student experience through these interconnections across disciplines.

So we've got the new faculty excited, we've got the students who are engaged, and the outside world loves this. When I meet with people in state government, local government or utilities, they all understand that the challenges driven by climate change demand both expertise and collaboration - and that universities have a critical role to play as leaders. Furthermore, the last year has clearly shown us how important it is to have trusted sources of information, and with both our freedom of speech and our expertise, it's important that researchers at universities step up to lay out the facts as they are.

California needs us. It needs universities out there leading on climate, looking at the data, telling the truth. And today's young people are enormously concerned about their future, and they're coming to UC Irvine to prepare themselves to make a difference. This is an amazing place where you can study climate and sustainability through literally dozens of different disciplines - biological sciences or physical sciences or business or humanities or social ecology or law - and you can find a way to have climate impact.

We're so excited by the opportunity to elevate UC Irvine as a destination for talented, energetic students who want to make a difference - and also by external partners with major challenges that demand a new perspective.