IN4GC

Introduction & Mission

The Interdisciplinary Network for Green Chemistry (IN4GC) links scholars who share an interest in green chemistry and, specifically, its broader business, economic, social and political implications as well as its role in achieving the societal goal of sustainability. Its mission is to provide a forum for ongoing dialogue between social scientists and chemists who seek to catalyze, through innovative research and education, the implementation of green chemistry principles throughout the global chemical enterprise. By assembling a critical mass of social science and chemistry expertise, it facilitates multi-institution collaborations and provides a banner for launching novel interdisciplinary research and teaching initiatives.

Objectives

IN4GC’s overall objective is to establish a world-class collaborative network of researchers from a range of disciplinary backgrounds who share an interest in engaged scholarship for sustainable development and, specifically, seek to catalyze the implementation of green chemistry principles throughout the global chemical enterprise via innovative research and education.

IN4GC’s research objectives are:

To increase networking, research development and publishing opportunities for established scholars and doctoral students interested in adopting social science or interdisciplinary perspectives to explore the global chemical enterprise’s transition to green chemistry;

To encourage and facilitate collaborative research projects among researchers from diverse fields who share in interest in the broader implications of green chemistry;

To disseminate research findings and analyses of the global chemical enterprise and its transition to green chemistry.

IN4GC’s education objectives are:

To develop and disseminate teaching and learning resources that make green chemistry meaningful to non-technical university-level audiences, including MBA students and executives;

To develop and disseminate teaching and learning resources that make the business, economic, social and political contexts of green chemistry meaningful to university-level Chemistry students.

Activities

IN4GC carries out its activities in a highly decentralized manner. Through discrete initiatives led by a subset of its institutional and individual members and which may also involve scholars who are not IN4GC members as well as industry, government or NGO partners, IN4GC engages in:

Disseminating of news, calls for papers, announcements, etc. to its members via a web 2.0 platform;

Developing and disseminating teaching and learning resources aimed at a range of different audiences;

Developing and disseminating a corpus of annotated bibliographies, databases and other research tools aimed at promoting an expanded view of, and interdisciplinary research on, green chemistry;

Organizing of interdisciplinary workshops and seminars on topics relevant to the global chemical enterprise’s transition to green chemistry;

Organizing of specialized streams, seminars and professional development opportunities that focus on the global chemical enterprise’s transition to green chemistry, within the context of conferences focusing on broader topics (e.g. annual ACS CG&E conference, Academy of Management Annual Meeting, etc.);

Proposing, preparing and publishing edited volumes of research papers and/or teaching materials;

Proposing, preparing and editing special issues of peer-reviewed journals.