What is the Challenge?
In alignment with Dow’s 2015 Sustainability Goals, the Sustainability Innovation Student Challenge Award (SISCA) programme was launched in 2009.
Designed to promote forward-thinking in social and environmental responsibility, SISCA acknowledges the energy, commitment and enthusiasm of the students and their university professors, sponsors and facilitators who support their sustainability innovations and efforts in continued excellence.
Who Can Apply?
- Individual students or student teams are eligible to participate in the SISCA Programme;
- Students must be enrolled at The University of Cambridge as a graduate student (ie Masters or Doctoral);
- Former SISCA winners are not eligible to participate in the SISCA Programme.
The Dow SISCA at the University of Cambridge is administered by Cambridge Programme for Sustainability Leadership.
Awards and Judging Criteria
SISCA provides two awards per university in each academic year, a Grand Prize of US$10,000 (approximately £6,240) and a Runner Up of US$2,500 (approximately £1,560).
Applicants will be judged on the basis of six criteria:
- Excellence and innovation in research;
- Interdisciplinarity;
- Focus on sustainability;
- Technical or business-oriented approach to solving significant problems;
- Alignment to the spirit of Dow’s 2015 Sustainability Goals;
- Account of how the money will be used for further research.
How to Apply
To apply, please fill out the form below and return it to Francesca Raphaely by 5pm on Friday, 4 May 2012.
Entries will be judged by a panel of leading academics from within the University of Cambridge. Award winners will be notified in early June 2012.
Download the 2012 Dow SISCA Application Form.
What is the Challenge?
The Dow Sustainability Innovation Student Challenge rewards students for innovative research that seeks to address some of the world’s greatest challenges, including global hunger, access to clean water and developing renewable energy sources.
Where is it held?
The Challenge is currently conducted at seven key strategic universities from around the globe – institutions selected for their excellence in sustainability, chemistry, engineering, business and natural resource management. As well as Cambridge, the Challenge takes place at the University of Michigan, University of California, Berkeley, Tufts University, Northwestern University, Peking University and the
University of Sao Paulo.
How is it judged?
Each university selects award winners based on innovative thinking and excellence in research, their potential for solving significant problems, the interdisciplinary nature of their research, and their alignment to the spirit of Dow's 2015 Sustainability Goals.
"Dow established the Student Challenge to encourage and promote forward thinking in social and environmental responsibility. The programme fosters creativity and inspires a spirit of collaboration between industry and universities."
Neil Hawkins, Vice President of Sustainability, Environment, Health & Safety,
Dow Chemical Company
The Dow Challenge Award Ceremony, 2011: Julian Beresford-Pierse (Dow Chemical Company), Robert Pott (Winner), Alison Banwell (Overall Winner), Alexandra Pearson (Outstanding Runner-Up) and Marcos Pelenur (Winner)
The Challenge
Over the past three years, CPSL has worked with the Dow Chemical Company to distribute over £50,000 to exceptional Cambridge students. This year’s Dow Student Challenge will allow three outstanding Cambridge postgraduates to extend their research and develop their contribution to sustainability innovation.
Winners
Postgraduates Alison Banwell (Scott Polar Research Institute), Marcos Pelenur (Centre for Sustainable Development) and Robert Pott (Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology) will receive £6,000 each for their outstanding research. Runner-up Alexandra Pearson will receive £500.
"Sustainability has been a cause close to my heart since I was young; my father worked as an environmentalist. I hoped that I would be able to contribute towards protecting our world in a similar way. With Dow so generously rewarding my project, I believe that I can."
Robert Pott, 2010–11 winner
Judges
The judges of the award – David Carter, Professor Howard Griffiths, Philip Guildford, Professor Peter Guthrie and Professor Ian Hodge – come from a range of departments, emphasising the need to pool interdisciplinary expertise to find sustainability solutions.
Further Opportunities for Sponsorship
We continue to seek new opportunities to nurture talent and ambition in sustainability research. For more information, please contact Mike Peirce, Director, Strategy and Communications, CPSL.
Press Release
Download the full story in our press release.
Latest News
Alison Banwell, Cambridge's overall winner of the 2011 prize, describes her work in Environmental Leader magazine. Building on existing models of glacier change, she examines melt and runoff patterns in Greenland and Nepal, and explores possible avenues for hydro-electric power.
Overall winner Alison Banwell giving her presentation at the award ceremony.
Overall Winner
Alison Banwell, of the Department of Geography’s Scott Polar Research Institute, is the 2010–11 overall winner. Alison works on glacier melt and runoff in Greenland and the Himalayas. Supervised by Dr Ian Willis and Dr Neil Arnold, Alison’s research uses both field data and models to help us understand how glaciers are melting as the Earth’s temperature rises. The prize will allow Alison to extend her work with local scientists and communities in the Nepal Himalaya, developing opportunities to manage water and raise living standards with hydro-electric power.
Additional Winners
Marcos Pelenur
(Centre for Sustainable Development, Department of Engineering) investigates the social and technical context of domestic energy retrofits, asking why the UK built environment is so inefficient in consuming energy and emitting CO2. He combines sociological methods with an engineering focus, looking for the first time at the cultural factors affecting domestic energy use.
Robert Pott (Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology) works on bacteria which generate hydrogen from the waste products of biodiesel manufacture. This could have huge implications for emissions reductions: if the means to produce the energy of the future rests in the hands of today’s energy producers, the shift to sustainable energy could be just around the corner.
Outstanding Runner-Up
Alexandra Pearson, an MPhil student at the Centre for Sustainable Development, will receive £500 as the single outstanding runner-up for her work on how companies embed sustainability goals into the development of new products.
Shortlist
Shortlisted students included Kirsten MacAskill, Manjusha Thorpe, José Vallejo, and Jenny Ya He. With nearly 80 high-quality candidates for the prize, this represented an exceptional achievement.
"Being recognised by Dow will allow me to extend my research to include a greater number of UK base design and manufacturing organisations."
Alexandra Pearson, 2010–11 runner-up
2009–10
Overall Winner
Cise Unluer, Department of Engineering: Optimising the Sustainability of Reactive Magnesia Cement-based Porous Blocks
Additional Winners
Jamie Anderson, Department of Architecture: Urban Wellbeing
Max Wigley, Department of Earth Sciences: Fluid-Mineral Reactions in Natural CO2 Reservoirs
Highly Commended
Brad Hiller, Chen Li and Tim Reilly
2008–09
Judith Sykes, Department of Engineering: Policies for Delivering Low Impact Development in Developing Countries
Ulf Narloch, Department of Land Economy: Payments for Agrobiodiversity Conservation Services
Sina Bonyadi, Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology: Fabrication of High Performance Polymer Carbon Nano-tube Composite Membranes