It’s a known fact that climate change is impacting the Indian Himalayan Region (IHR) and that imposes cascading effects on local food and water security. Addressing the human, environmental, and communal toll these changes create will take communities coming together across boundaries: exactly like what happened this September at the IU India Gateway. After 20 months of planning, a team of experts from Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI), including faculty from the Department of Earth Sciences and Richard M. Fairbanks School of Public Health, visited India to deliver panel discussions and workshops on the theme of Climate Shocks in the Indian Himalayan Region.
The initiative consisted of three phases that took place over four months. Phase I was conducted virtually in August 2022 and included an introduction to speakers, workshop orientation, and a prelude to the theme to prepare for the in-person events in Phase II.
In September 2022, the IU India Gateway and TERI School of Advanced Studies (TERI SAS) planned a week of activities across disciplines focused on the UN Sustainable Goals (SDGs), specifically goals 2 (Zero hunger), 5 (Gender Equality), 13 (Climate Action), and 17 (Partnerships to achieve the Goal). This project brought scientists, activists, scholars, and civil servants together and was funded by Indiana University’s Global Impact Research Grant (GIRG) and the IU Global Gateway Grants.
One of the highlights of the week was the two-day in-person workshop in the northern-Indian mountainous city of Dehradun on Building Community Resilience to Climate Shocks in the Himalayan Region. Fifty participants from twenty-one organizations comprising civil society, young researchers, and scientists attended. Experts from IUPUI, CEDAR, Himmotthan, and TERI SAS facilitated sessions in the areas of environment and community interactions, water resource variability in the IHR, drought agriculture, driver-pressure-state-impact-response, climate change, gender, social justice, polycentric governance, and public health leadership.
In Phase III, the final session will take place in December 2022 when the participants reconvene online to share their action plans for implementation in their home community and/or constituency to understand their implications for policy processes and development in the region.
IUPUI’s visiting faculty team also led an open panel discussion on Careers in Sustainability at the IU India Gateway and visited Him Jyoti School, Dehradun to talk to students who were from communities in the region, many of whom had experienced the direct effects of climate change. The week ended with a panel discussion at the University of Petroleum Studies (UPES), with an audience of more than 200 students and faculty from across disciplines.
The faculty along with Dr. Hilary Kahn, associate vice chancellor for International Affairs at IUPUI and associate vice president for International Affairs at Indiana University, explored opportunities for joint research and institutional collaborations with UPES.
The UN SDGs are the cornerstone of IUPUI’s campus internationalization efforts. Our goal is to create interdisciplinary and solution-oriented opportunities for developing curriculum, partnerships, and research focused on the 2030 agenda for global change. We are so proud to be engaged in these critical and impactful global conversations!
Professor Hilary Kahn
In her introductory remarks, Professor Kahn spoke about the importance of global collaboration in meeting the challenges of the ambitious SDG agenda and how global engagement and international partnerships are critical to addressing the most critical issues of our time. She also reminded the students about how important it is for them to expand their sense of responsibility beyond the local to the global.
Meaningful global engagement and multi-disciplinary partnerships like this can help reach a larger audience and have a wider global impact on the SDG framework. By working together across disciplines and geographic borders, sharing knowledge, and creating opportunities for reciprocal exchange, the world can become a better place to live in.
Indiana University offers our sincere gratitude to the following faculty and external speakers for their deep engagement with the project:
- Dr. Ian S McIntosh
Director, International Partnerships, IUPUI - Dr. Lixin Wang
Associate Professor, Department of Earth Sciences, IUPUI - Dr. Suzanne Babich
Associate Dean & Professor of Global Health and acting chair, Department of Global Health/Director, Doctoral Program in Global Health Leadership, Indiana University Richard M. Fairbanks School of Public Health - Dr. Gabriel Filippelli
Chancellor’s Professor of Earth Sciences, Director, Center for Urban Health, IUPUI - Broxton Bird, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Earth Sciences, Director, Center for Earth and Environmental Science (CEES), IUPUI - Dr. Fawzia Tarannum
Assistant Professor, Coca Cola Department of Regional Water Studies, TERI SAS - Dr. Ranjana Ray Chaudhuri
Assistant Professor, Coca Cola Department of Regional Water Studies, TERI SAS - Dr. Sherly M.A.
Assistant Professor, Coca Cola Department of Regional Water Studies, TERI SAS - Dr. Vishal Singh
Senior Fellow and Director, Research, Center for Ecology Development & Research, (CEDAR), Dehradun - Dr. S.P. Singh
Former Vice Chancellor, HNB Garhwal University, Uttarakhand