E-RISE
Advancing Sustainable Development Opportunities
The vision of this E-RISE RII incubator is to advance research integration and development in Guam through interdisciplinary initiatives that foster collaboration across research teams and institutions to develop a skilled workforce capable of addressing local and regional challenges. This incubator facilitates interdisciplinary research, enhances STEM capacity, and promotes workforce development in four thematic areas:
- Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (BES)
- Data Science and Modeling (DSM);
- Integrative Biological Collections (IBC)
- Research and Knowledge Translation (RKT)
These themes and their goals are strategically aligned with jurisdictional priorities outlined in Guam’s Science and Technology Economic Diversity Plan (S&T Plan). The incubator will build collaborative networks and partnerships between researchers, professionals, and stakeholders to drive innovation in Guam. The incubator aims to support teams of faculty researchers and postdoctoral scholars, and provide training opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students from Guam’s two institutions of higher education, the University of Guam (UOG) and Guam Community College (GCC).
The incubator’s mission is to assess the ecosystem services provisioned by Guam’s biodiversity and to train a skilled workforce capable of engaging with economic opportunity areas outlined in Guam’s Science & Technology (S&T) Plan, in particular sustainable natural resources and information technology.
Vision
Advance research development and integration in Guam through interdisciplinary initiatives and collaboration across research teams and institutions.
Mission
Assess ecosystem services of Guam’s natural resources and train a skilled workforce capable of engaging with economic development opportunities.
Vision
Advance research development and integration in Guam through interdisciplinary initiatives and collaboration across research teams and institutions.
Mission
Assess ecosystem services of Guam’s natural resources and train a skilled workforce capable of engaging with economic development opportunities.
E-RISE Project Themes & Goals
Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (BES)
Identify ecosystem services
Data Science and Modeling (DSM)
Develop ecosystem models
Integrative Biological Collections (IBC)
Document species diversity
Research Knowledge Translation (RKT)
Employ ADOPT, CONNECT, TRAIN (ACT) Framework to facilitate transfer of knowledge
Objectives
- Characterize abundance of reef calcifiers
- Develop framework for a reef carbonate budget model
- Assess biodiversity across spatio-temporal scales
- Integrate natural resource assessments with advanced data analytics
- Expand training opportunities for students in computer and data science programs at the University of Guam (UOG) and Guam
Community College (GCC)
- Integrate Guam Center for Biodiversity Research (GCBR) collections
- Conduct and support biodiversity research
- Form administrative structure for GCBR oversight and outreach
- Grow existing collections
- Achieve sustainability
- Engage stakeholders to ADOPT new knowledge that informs natural resource management
policy and practice - CONNECT stakeholders with GCBR to facilitate collaboration
- TRAIN jurisdictional natural resource management workforce
Impacts
- Diversified funding portfolio to sustain the research incubator and ensure lasting impacts
- Growing, locally trained STEM-trained workforce capable of engaging with emerging economic opportunity areas
- Locally driven solutions for natural resource sustainability informed by science
- Increasing collaboration between Guam’s academic and natural resource management institutions
Project Themes and Cross-Disciplinary Activities
This integrated E-RISE RII research and capacity-building project employs a cohesive framework for generating, curating, modeling, and sharing biodiversity and ecosystem knowledge to support scientific discovery, workforce development, and community engagement.
- BES: provides the foundational empirical data needed to characterize ecosystem processes and services, informing the development of robust ecological baselines.
- DSM: builds interdisciplinary analytical capacity that enhances our understanding of ecosystem processes and supports data-driven decision-making.
- IBC: ensures long-term preservation, accessibility, and educational value of specimen-based data, linking research, training, and public engagement through modern collections infrastructure.
- RKT: amplifies the program’s broader impacts by translating research outcomes into actionable knowledge, fostering cross-sector partnerships, and contributing to the development of a skilled workforce.
Together, these four themes establish a synergistic model for aligning research, workforce development, and science communication to advance jurisdictional priorities.
Primary Project Partners
UOG as Guam’s Premier Research Institution
UOG is a Land, Sea, and Space Grant institution accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC) and serves as Guam’s premier center for research and higher education, offering 34 undergraduate and 11 master’s programs to serve students in the jurisdiction. UOG has been supported through NSF EPSCoR since 2015 and secured funding from other NSF programs, in addition to NASA, NOAA, NIH, USDA, and other agencies. Since 2022, UOG ranked 284 out of 890 US universities in R&D expenditures, a significant achievement for an institution of its size.
GCC’s Role in Strengthening Guam’s STEM Workforce
For this incubator, UOG partnered with GCC, the jurisdiction’s sole community college which has been accredited by the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges (ACCJC), Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC) since 1979. GCC provides vital technical training to support workforce development aligned with Guam’s priorities for economic growth and diversification. UOG and GCC have established seamless 2+2 pathways, including in computer science, to strengthen STEM education and research opportunities.
Collaboration between UOG and GCC in this E-RISE RII incubator enhances student access to hands-on research opportunities to support STEM training pathways that support Guam’s growing research and innovation ecosystem.
This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. OIA-2445825.
Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.
