Advancing IE Distributional and Procedural Equity
The scholars recruited through the IE cluster will elevate UCI’s leadership in setting the nation’s infrastructure and climate change research and policy priorities for decades to come by advancing distributional and procedural equity for communities adversely impacted by past and future investments. The cluster focuses on both physical (transportation, water, land use, housing, energy, broadband, etc.) and social/civic (access to services, community capacity, structures, and processes for collective engagement, etc.) dimensions of infrastructure.
Distributional equity refers to how the benefits or harms associated with infrastructure are distributed spatially and across society. Collectively, new hires will amplify existing campus strengths in distributional equity by…
- Examining the historic and ongoing racial injustices of transportation, water distribution and flood control infrastructure;
- Assessing distributional impacts of emerging mobility and electrification technology; and
- Helping ensure mitigation measures are sufficient and strategically located to protect vulnerable populations from extreme weather associated with climate change
Procedural equity refers to ensuring that infrastructure decision making processes are inclusive and transparent and that impacted communities have meaningful opportunities to participate in the identification of impacts and development of mitigation strategies. Collectively, new hires will extend existing campus expertise in procedural equity by…
- Interrogating equity dimensions of emerging infrastructure and climate policy and regulatory processes;
- Advancing development of screening tools and metrics to ensure equity in resource allocation decisions;
- Integrating local knowledge of environmental hazards with expert analysis to co-produce knowledge that informs emergency response and infrastructure decisions
Cluster Partners and Goals
Goal 1. Advance IE Knowledge – New Paths for Research, Collaboration and Funding
The IE cluster will recruit four scholars whose work actively engages Black communities, advances the understanding of the Black experience, and interrogates the myriad forms of structural racism associated with past and current infrastructure investments. With campus and community partners, these scholars will forge new paths for research innovation, interdisciplinary collaboration, and extramural funding that advances greater infrastructure equity for Black communities and build on the existing strengths of participating units:
- UPPP leads in evaluating transportation, land use, and housing policies to address climate change, examining water and flooding challenges exacerbated by extreme weather, assessing the impacts of freeway and transit investments, and understanding how activists of color advance equitable climate solutions.
- CEE has significant expertise in the design, control, and analysis of transportation systems, the impact of emerging technologies on mobility services, transit networks, and urban development, and water distribution and flood control systems.
- ESS uses numerical models, remote sensing, and ground-based observations to investigate how the impacts of climate change are distributed and to study the causes and consequences of climate change for different geographies and populations.
- The School of Law has significant expertise in historic racial injustices of freeway construction, strategies to mitigate climate change through transportation, land use, and housing policy, and water management challenges.
These units have strong records of interdisciplinary collaboration, scholarship, and funding. Examples include NSF-funded FloodRISE project examining coastal flood risk, Ridge 2 Reef which trains scholars to manage natural resources in urban complexes, and Solutions that Scale which brings together scientists and academics, policy makers, business leaders, and global citizens to identify and accelerate climate change solutions that scale.
Goal 2. Train the Future – Engagement, Mentorship, and Applied Learning
The IE cluster will leverage existing courses and community engagement efforts to amplify the work of new hires with Black communities and train the next generation of scholars, professionals, and policy makers.
- Participating units will offer cluster-aligned courses to connect the knowledge, skills, and values students are learning with communities impacted by infrastructure and climate change.
- The Research Justice Shop (RJS) will launch the Infrastructure Equity and Research Justice (IERJ) Initiative to foster a community of scholars trained in best practices of community-based research and engaged with Black communities and other historically marginalized groups.
Goal 3. Engage Policy Makers and Support Community-Driven Solutions
The IE cluster will promote translational research, engage with impacted communities and policy makers, and support community-driven solutions in the following ways:
- The cluster will work with campus partners to translate the IE research results of new hires and from IE project-based courses and collaborations into public-facing policy briefs and interactive online media.
- Cluster programming will include engage with policy makers through convenings of policy and community experts, IE project-based courses, and partnerships with community organizations.
- The cluster will support community-driven solutions by working with UCI Community Resilience to support national partnerships in building capacity for Black and historically disinvested communities to apply for equitable infrastructure and climate investments.