6 new projects have received fast track funding
SDU Climate Cluster supports 6 new free research ideas with funding to establish pilot projects that can later form the basis for larger external research applications.
Core to SDU Climate Cluster is to support interdisciplinary research that support SCCs mission to contribute to climate neutrality by 2050.
The fast track instrument is one instrument, and it is used for support of free research ideas and hypotheses and for establishment of pilot projects, which can form basis for large external research applications later on.
Thus, the fast track instrument is a test track for new interdisciplinary research collaborations at SDU. The applicant team must consist of researchers from minimum two different faculties.
A total of 9 MDKK has been allocated for this instrument, which corresponds to 90 fast track projects. The instruments are distributed at biannual application rounds.
By now, SCC has supported 25 fast track projects inclusive of these six. You can read about the fast track projects that have received support previously https://www.sdu.dk/en/forskning/sdu-climate-cluster/research-projects/fast-track.
More viable rural communities – also in the future
Rural communities must also be viable when we reach the other side of the climate transition. But what is a viable rural community, and how do we ensure that the disrespect and distance between urban dwellers and rural communities does not grow?
With this project, the researchers aim at developing and testing a workshop based method that can bring together urban dwellers, rural people and sustainability advocates in the effort to find a common path to more sustainable rural communities.
Important for the project is that it bottom-up style builds on the participant’s own ideas on what characterizes a viable and sustainable rural community.
Project title: Farmer’s pasts and futures in Europe: memory, subjectivity and resistance.
Researchers:
- Søren Askegaard, Professor, Dept. of Business and Management, Faculty of Business and Social Sciences
- Sune Vork Steffensen, Professor, Center for Human Interactivity, Faculty of the Humanities
- Manuela Zechner, Postdoc, Dept. of Business and Management, SDU and the Department of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies, University of Copenhagen
Digitalization of Guinea Bissau’s Meteorological Data
Since 1950, Guinea Bissau has been collecting weather data, but not all of it is digitally available, making it cumbersome to use for analyzing climate change in the country. With this project, researchers aim to assist in digitizing the data, thereby paving the way for understanding the impacts of climate change and its potential future effects on the country’s mangrove forests, food security and child mortality rates.
It is known that Guinea Bissau’s mangrove forests are retreating further inland, and the researchers hope that the detailed weather data on wet and dry periods over the past 75 years can provide new insights into what is causing the mangroves to shift.
The newly digitized weather data can also be linked with other data, such as health data from the Bandim Health Project, which, uniquely, has been collecting health data on more than 200,000 people across Guinea Bissau for over 45 years.
Project title: Meteorological Observations in Guinea Bissau: Digitalizing 75 years of meteorological data and building an in-country data infrastructure for future studies of Climate Impact
Researchers:
- Christine Stabell Benn, Professor, Department of Clinical Research, Faculty of Health Science
- Ane Fisker, Professor, Bandim Health Project, Faculty of Health Science
- Cintia Quintana, Associate Professor, Department of Biology, Faculty of Science
- Søren Askegaard, Professor, Dept. of Business and Management, Faculty of Business and Social Sciences
Better understanding of how heat stress affects our cells
Heat waves are stressful for cells and are the most common climate-related death cause in high-income countries. Our understanding of how our bodies react to heat stress is limited, and this projects wishes to establish a new method for monitoring heat stress in cells. The goal is to optimize sampling, handling and analysis of blood and urine from healthy individuals.
The researchers hope that their results will lead to better medical treatments, better nutritional recommendations and behavioural interventions, so that fewer people will get ill from heat stress and so that we will need fewer carbon-costly hospitalizations.
Project title: Heat and Health: Development of a method to monitor cellular heat stress in humans.
Researchers:
- Per Svenningsen, Professor, Department of Molecular Medicine, Faculty of Health Sciences
- Kim Ravnskjær, Associate Professor, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Faculty of Science
Better Preparedness in Hospital Emergency Departments When Extreme Weather Hits
Extreme weather such as heatwaves and floods is expected to become worse and more frequent in Denmark. This leads to more accidents and worsening of existing illnesses, which again places a greater burden on the healthcare system, especially in emergency departments.
The researchers behind this project aim to create a tool for emergency planning that takes this into account. The idea is to use statistical models to investigate which patient groups and illnesses trigger increased activity in Danish emergency departments during various types of extreme weather. In the long term, the researchers will expand their analyses to Northern Europe with the aim of developing a system that can be used for emergency planning in the healthcare sector.
Project title: Using advanced statistical methods to characterize the epidemiological associations between extreme weather events and Danish emergency hospital service demand.
Researchers:
- Sören Möller, Associate Professor, Odense University Hospital and Faculty of Health Sciences
- Søren Bie Bogh, Associate Professor, Odense University Hospital and Faculty of Health Sciences
- Peter Biesenbach, Associate Professor, Esbjerg Hospital and Faculty of Health Sciences
- Mikkel Brabrand, Professor, Odense University Hospital and Faculty of Health Sciences
- Jing Qin, Associate Professor, Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, Faculty of Science
- Yuri Goegebeur, Associate Professor, Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, Faculty of Science
- Shuting Yang, PhD, Danish Meteorological Institute
How can women in Guinea-Bissau be empowered in sustainable entrepreneurship?
Climate change also affects developing countries, and this challenge cannot be solved by men alone. Therefore, the researchers behind this project want to investigate how women can be involved. The focus is on Guinea-Bissau, where it is common to burn waste in the streets or dump it in landfills. As a result, recyclable resources such as textiles, cardboard, metal and plastic are lost. The researchers believe that women can play a crucial role in the development of waste management and the circular economy, which can also create new entrepreneurial opportunities and promote sustainable development. For instance, this could involve creating a business around collecting recyclable resources, trading them or creating entirely new products from them.
Project title: Climate implications on the livelihoods and socio-economic wellbeing of women in Guinea-Bissau – identifying sustainable alternatives.
Researchers:
- Maria Elo, Professor, Dept. of Business and Management, Faculty of Business and Social Sciences
- Ane Fisker, Professor, Bandim Health Project, Faculty of Health Sciences
- Lykke Margot Ricards, Associate Professor, Department of Technology and Innovation, Faculty of Engineering
- Cintia Organo Quintana, Associate Professor, Department of Biology, Faculty of Science
Animal Sounds Can Warn of Climate Change
The sounds that birds make reflect their recent singing activity which is influenced by the environment – for example, temperature, humidity and food availability. When changes occur in an animal's sound production, it can provide early warning signals about climate change, even before changes in vegetation or landscape can be detected.
The researchers behind this project will therefore equip songbirds in South Africa, Australia and Denmark with lightweight microphones and monitor their sound production. The collected sound data can then be combined with epidemiological models and used to develop guidelines for how to mitigate climate change in smaller geographic areas that may be overlooked by satellite data.
Project title: Using bioacoustics tools and epidemiological modelling to assess climate change impacts on ecosystems.
Researchers
- Iris Adam, Assistant Professor, Department of Biology, Faculty of Science
- Manuella Lech Cantuaria, Assistant Professor, Department of Clinical Research, Faculty of Health Sciences
- Damaris Coralie Riedner, ph.d.-student, Department of Biology, University of Copenhagen