Location – Omni Hotel

Location – Chatham University Eden Hall Campus

Separate Registration of $25 Required, register on the Summit Eventbrite page.

Neighborhoods are rich places of learning when many people come to share expertise. The Research Forum @ SummitPGH will explore how community-embedded research can equitable benefit both the community and the academic institution.Sometimes called community-based participatory research, the Forum will gather community members, students, and academic professionals to discuss how they can collaborate to equitably advance community efforts and increase knowledge through shared decision-making and ownership.

The Research Forum is a chance for local and national participants to discuss what roles can and should research institutions—both in and beyond universities—play in a transition toward sustainable practices. The Forum will include interactive panels and working sessions that explore:

• How have communities developed, leveraged, and negotiated their relationships with research institutions to pursue equitable sustainable development?
• What are the opportunities and challenges in aligning the goals of research and practice?
• What topics are addressed in regional and national research and where can we collaborate to advance research and practice?
• How can community embedded research create change at a neighborhood and a regional scale?

The Research Forum is a locally hosted, one day event to highlight regional and national research activities and leadership in urban and community development and to discuss opportunities for deeper collaborations regionally and nationally. The Forum is open to all conference registrants and academics and practitioners are encouraged to attend. The Forum activities include presentations on featured research and education, activities to build an ecodistrict agenda, identification of collaboration opportunities, and next steps to build relationships between institutions. The event requires a separate registration and a small fee.

11:30 AM – 12:30 PM

Registration & Welcome

Eden Hall Campus Tour & Lunch

12:30 PM – 1:00 PM

Welcome to Eden Hall

The Campus as a Living-Learning Lab

1:00 PM – 1:30 PM

Research Forum Introduction

1:30 PM – 2:15 PM
Opening Panel: The community-embedded ecodistrict research experience

Pittsburgh is emerging as a national leader in the development and pursuit of district-scale sustainable urbanism. This panel explores how two Pittsburgh ecodistricts develop, leverage, and negotiate their relationships with research institutions to shape and pursue equitable sustainable development. Their experiences pose opportunities for reflection about how communities can connect their needs for, interests in, and work on sustainable development to the frameworks, practice, and conventions of research at regional universities.

2:15 PM – 4:00PM
Facilitated Working Session            

Using Pittsburgh as an example, this session offers participants an opportunity to discuss points of alignment and disjuncture the research community and the priorities, needs, and practices of district-scale sustainability initiatives. Small working groups will be organized according to shared challenges and opportunities associated with pursuing community-embedded ecodistrict research. The session will help define best practices towards community-embedded ecodistrict research and will contribute to the formation of a regional/national research agenda.

4:00 PM – 4:45 PM
Closing Panel: Opportunities for community-embedded ecodistrict research

What roles can and should research institutions—both in and beyond universities—play in Pittsburgh’s sustainability transition? Where are the strengths and gaps in these roles, and how can they be strategically developed to critically engage with and support Pittsburgh’s sustainable development? What relationships between communities and research institutions can and should be cultivated, with what implications for the expertise, responsibility, and scales of impact exercised and experienced by Pittsburgh communities, universities, and other centers of research? How can we re-envision an ethical, financially-viable role for universities in Pittsburgh’s sustainability transition?

Location – Omni Hotel

Location – Green Building Alliance

Moderator: Tracy Certo | Founder & Publisher, NEXT Pittsburgh
Presenter(s):
Fred Brown | President, The Forbes Funds
Grant Ervin | Chief Resilience Officer, City of Pittsburgh
Christine Mondor | Principal, evolveEA

Location – Phipps Conservatory, Special Events Hall

Introduction by: Regina Smith | Managing Director – Arts and Culture, Kresge Foundation

Liz Ogbu | Founder & Principal, Studio O

Do No Harm: What it Means to Work for Spatial Justice
Concepts like equity have become part of mainstream conversations of what it means to build more inclusive cities is something that we should celebrate. But as we see increasing inequality, rising social and political tensions, and growing areas of exclusion, it’s becoming clear that catalyzing more just cities requires more. This talk will explore what it means to think of community development work in this context and how we need to move beyond basic notions of equity to the more critical framing of justice, one that holds more challenging concepts like harm, complicity, and healing.

Kofi Boone, ASLA | Professor of Landscape Architecture, North Carolina State University, College of Design

The Just and the Green: Confronting Green Inequities
The impact of racism has long influenced the design of cities and cultural landscapes. Kofi Boone, a Detroit native and Professor of Landscape Architecture at NC State University in the College of Design, has been at the forefront of challenging the design community to confront racism and work towards environmental justice. His award winning design work in landscape architecture focuses on making culture and democratic design fundamental. Kofi will illustrate his research, case studies, and insights from project work in his provocative keynote presentation “The Just and the Green: Confronting Green Inequities”.

Kofi’s work illustrates the need for “green” advocates to reckon with the legacy of assuming a focus on non-human ecological processes superseding people, places, and cultural practices. He offers up strategies for reconciling environmental best practices with authentic community engagement will be offered as a way forward in the shared pursuit of a green and just society for all.

The design field is grappling with the consequences of global climate change and how it is revealing the long-standing processes entrenching social inequality and environmental injustice. Our most vulnerable communities facing the consequences of massive environmental disruption and change are rarely first in line to benefit from green planning and design innovations. This green divide between the “just” seeking social and environmental equity and the “green” seeking ecological and economic opportunity represents one of the most important conflicts in need of reconciliation.

Location TBA

Location – TBA