Program Themes

Program themes include Science, Technology and Innovation, Entrepreneurship, and Sustainable Energy.  Scholar applicants should have particular expertise in these themes and submit research proposals in the following critical areas of engagement:

• Move ideas from laboratories to the marketplace in fields of regional importance, such as climate change and adaptation strategies, including research projects focusing on food production and food security, and emergency preparedness;
  
  
• Address public health issues arising from climate variability and change, including those related to air quality, water- and food-borne diseases, parasites, and weather-related injury or death.
  
  
• Contribute to the development of sustainable cities, informed by best practices in urban planning, earthquake and other natural disaster preparedness (including floods, hurricanes, tsunamis, etc), green energy and environmental standards;
  
  
• Foster regional and local competitiveness;
  
  
• Address poverty eradication and increase quality-of-life outcomes for all individuals from the region;
  
  
• Promote expanded access to education, including in STEM fields at the primary, secondary and post-secondary levels.

• Provide consumers with greater access to clean-energy research and green technologies;
  
  
• Foster innovative market solutions to pressing social needs across the region;
  
  
• Expand access to working capital for micro-entrepreneurs;
  
  
• Link markets to producers and consumers across the supply and distribution chain so that small producers and service providers can participate more effectively in trade;
  
  
• Expand credit access to the unbanked through innovative approaches such as utilizing movable assets like collateral and promoting the availability of secured transactions;
  
  
• Build upon a continuum of experiences to capitalize on a wide range of entrepreneurial knowledge from micro to mainstream, including social entrepreneurship theories and practices;
  
  
• Engage the private sector and civil society to advance labor and environmental standards in business and industry, sharing  best practices for such standards and their enforcement;
  
  
• Outline how activities can become self-sustainable and replicable over time. 

• Renewable and sustainable energy (hydro, wind, air, solar);
  
  
• Energy poverty and energy security;
  
  
• Energy efficiency and environmental security;
  
  
• Energy industries as drivers of economic growth;
  
  
• Energy independence at regional, national, community and household levels;
  
  
• Energy innovation and indigenous sources of energy as means to decrease reliance on fossil fuels and carbon emissions;
  
  
• Energy infrastructure and regional integration as related to emergency preparedness (earthquakes, hurricanes, tsunamis, offshore drilling accidents); 
  
  
• Research, development, deployment and dissemination of cleaner, cheaper and more efficient energy technologies to drive low-carbon economic growth.