The University of California, Davis (UC Davis) and Diamond Developers (DD) of Dubai, UAE entered into a 3-year agreement in March 2014. DD invested 2.9 million dollars into the Sustainability Research and Training Programs (SRTP), the first which was a research grant program.
The First Call for Proposals was issued in May of 2014. Five awards were granted enabling research teams to develop water purification systems, advanced anaerobic waste digesters, compost manufacturing and hybrid cooling systems. Learn more about these five awards here.
The Second Call for Proposals was issued in October of 2014. This call addressed social aspects of sustainability. One grant was awarded to study to what extent a new residential community with a purpose-built environment and operations engenders community social behavior that contributes to the sustainability goals?
A Third Call for Proposals was released on April 20, 2015. This call asked for the integration of social and technical aspects of sustainability. Three awards were granted for projects on transportation choices, landscape mitigation of micro-climates, and electrical energy storage and management.
Dr. Pramod Pandey (UC Davis), Dr. Shagufta Gill (Scientist, International Center for Biosaline Agriculture), Mr. Mohammad Jarrar (Engineer, Diamond Developer), and Dr. Rashed Al-Sa’ed (Birzeit University) met in Dubai to launch SRTP study on municipal waste composting.
Dr. Pandey and his research team will be evaluating three potential composting processes for urban waste.