Project

Both NC and Pakistani provinces are facing very similar climate threats, developing this partnership project provides an opportunity to learn lessons from these contrasting mountain-oceans environments that offer opportunities to enhance sustainable development in these areas. At the same time, Pakistan has a large disparity in women’s participation in climate and related environmental policy and decision-making.

 

Project Goals
We hereby propose to work together to promote women scientists and female students for climate change-related studies. The main goals of this partnership between NC State and three women universities are to:

1	Develop stronger US–Pakistan higher educational ties, particularly in the climate and associated environmental change related geoscience field.
2	Build a Pakistani Women University Climate Change Consortium (PWUCCC) – an important platform to raise awareness about climate change and associated environmental impacts on Pakistan and train more women leaders, scientists, and advocates on environmental and climate justice policies, community resilience, and adaptation.
3	Help train, prepare, and enable the next generations of Pakistani women with greater academic and research capacity in climate and associated environmental change studies, i.e., fundamental causes, dynamics changes, evolution, adaptation, and resilience methods.
4	Highlight the important creative and innovative advances that Pakistani women environmentalists have been undertaking to address critical and grand challenges facing Pakistani communities and beyond, and what NC State can learn from them.

 

Project Audiences
Our three primary partners in Pakistan are the Environmental Science Departments at LCWU, FJWU and SBKWU. At least 40 faculty, 200 graduate students, and 500 undergraduate students will be directly involved and participate in the proposed courses, seminars, and trainingworkshops (see Table 1). In addition, there are ~10 women faculty members and 27 female students from the participant partner- LUAWMS will directly benefit from this partnership.
Overall, at least 50 Pakistani women colleagues and thousand students will directly benefit from this partnership project. In addition, 10-15 women policymakers from the local government will be invited to the proposed training workshops and forums, which will be held at LCWU and FJWU campuses.

Structure of the Pakistani Women University Climate Change Consortium (PWUCCC)

	LCWU	FJWU	SBKWU	LUAWMS
Departments	Environmental Science	Environmental Science	Environmental Science	Marine and Environmental Science
Degree offered	BS, MS, PhD	BS, MS, PhD	BS, MS, PhD	BS, MS, PhD
Women faculty	13	12	11	10
Female BS students	263	220	96	25
Female MS/PhD students	118	90	26	2

 

Project Objectives
Through this university-level partnership, we have the following specific objectives:

1	Promote and train more Pakistani women scientists and female students in climate-related geoscience and environmental fields.
2	In-person and virtual teaching exchanges by giving lectures, seminars, & workshops.
3	Sharing of online & offline pedagogical resources (videos, slides, materials, books, datasets, etc.).
4	Professional development for faculty by workshops, seminars, & field working together.
5	Climate and environmental change-related curriculum development at graduate and undergraduate levels.
6	Undertake faculty-and-student exchanges.
7	Plan and prepare for future collaborative research.

 

Project Activities

1	Assessment
2	Curriculum development
3	In-person and virtual teaching exchanges
4	Sharing of pedagogical resources
5	Professional development for faculty, researchers, and students
6	Faculty-and-student exchanges
7	Provide collaborative research

 

Project Deliverables

1	Forming a Pakistani Women University Climate Change Consortium.
2	A monthly Climate and Environmental Change Women Webinar Series. All talks will be recorded and archived as teaching and research resources.
3	Five online courses are offered each year for the Climate Adaptation Certificate.
4	Training workshops/Forums (two in Pakistan, two in the US) for women faculty, students, collaborators, research scientists, policymakers, state and local officials with a gift USB containing handouts and all training materials, recorded talks, presentations, and presentations discussions.
5	Help build up the degree/certificate programs of the Institute of Climate Change and Environmental Sciences at LCWU.
6	Field course and hands-on training mainly on climate and landscape changes, with detailed field manual and real-world case study of the rapid change in the mountains of the Karakoram in Northern Pakistan (lead by Prof. Owen).
7	Educational and research agreements and proposals for future collaborations.
8	Diversity, Equity and Inclusive development plan for PWUCCC.

 

Implementation timeline

Timeline	Activities		Locations	Method
Jan-March 2023	Assess and evaluate the current status quo of Pakistan women university’s climate-related educational curriculum, research, and policies		Online	Zoom meetings, emails
March 2023	US faculty and students to visit Pakistan to give talks & workshops		LCWU/FJWU campus	In person*
	Held a climate change forum		LCWU campus	In person*
May/June 2023	Pakistani women faculty, students and policymakers visit NC State for 30 days for field courses, on campus workshops and visiting collaborators		NC State	In person*
	Field course at NC Outer banks and Visit NCCIS		CMAST, NCCIS	In person*
	Diversity, Equity, and Inclusive Training		NC State OIED	In person*
December 2023	Project annual meeting, prepare the annual report		Online	Zoom meetings
May/June 2023	Pakistani women faculty, students and policymakers visit NC State for 30 days for field courses, on campus workshop		NC State, CMAST, NCCIS	In Person*
July/Aug. 2024	US faculty and students to visit Pakistan to give talks, workshops & field courses		FJWU campus & field	In person*
November 2024	Project annual meeting, prepare the final report		Online	Zoom meeting
December 2024	Publishing final report/papers		online

*If the COVID-19 situation gets worsen, all in-person activities can go virtually.