ASLA Fund Research Grants: Landscape Architecture Solutions to Biodiversity Loss and Extreme Heat

ASLA 2021 Professional General Design Honor Award. Duke University Water Reclamation Pond, Durham, North Carolina. Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects / image: Mark Hough

New Research Grants: Evidence for Landscape Architecture Solutions to the Climate and Biodiversity Crises

The ASLA Fund, a 501(c)(3) organization, announced $25,000 in national competitive grants to develop research reviews at the Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture (CELA) Conference last week. This opportunity is open to ASLA members and non-members in academia.

The ASLA Fund invites landscape architecture educators to develop succinct and impactful research reviews that investigate evidence of the benefits of landscape architecture solutions to the climate and biodiversity crises. The goals of the research reviews are to:

Understand and summarize the current state of knowledge.
Synthesize the research literature and provide insights, leveraging key data- and science-based evidence.
Create accessible executive summaries in plain language for policymakers, community advocates, and practicing landscape architects.

Over the next few years, research grants will be issued to explore solutions to a range of issues, but these first two grants will focus on:

Landscape Architecture Solutions to Biodiversity Loss ($12,500)
Landscape Architecture Solutions to Extreme Heat ($12,500)

ASLA 2022 Professional Urban Design Honor Award. Midtown Park, Houston, Texas. Design Workshop, Inc. / image: Brandon Huttenlocher – Design Workshop, Inc.

“We need landscape architecture educators’ advanced research skills to build the evidence. Working together, landscape architecture educators, practitioners, and students can help us achieve the goals of the ASLA Climate Action Plan,” said ASLA President Emily O’Mahoney, FASLA.

“Landscape architecture educators are key to driving forward research on solutions to the climate and biodiversity crises. This critically important work helps build the foundations for landscape architecture as design science and support efforts to designate landscape architecture a STEM discipline,” said ASLA CEO Torey Carter Conneen.

The research grant period will run from June to the end of this year. The research surveys will be peer reviewed.

The grants are open to landscape architecture educators who are currently affiliated with a university, have a graduate degree, and have published at least one peer-reviewed research paper.

Please submit your proposals by Friday, April 28, at asla.org/evidence.