Background

Duke University’s Office of Climate and Sustainability and the National University of Singapore (NUS) are pleased to announce the launch of the NUS-Duke University Joint Sustainability Research Initiative Grants. This initiative aims to kick-start collaborations in climate and sustainability-related research between the two universities. Each institution has committed approximately $400,000 in funding to support up to four selected projects. At Duke University, these grants are being administered as part of the Duke Climate Commitment, which unites the university’s education, research, operations, and public service missions to address the climate crisis. At the National University of Singapore, this effort supports NUS Sustainable Futures—a community-building and agenda-setting platform, driving sustainability research and education to new peaks of excellence—aligned with the university’s Commitment to Sustainability. This funding opportunity complements existing climate and health collaborations between Duke University and Duke-NUS Medical School, which recently funded five joint projects focused on the impact of climate change on human health. 

We invite proposals targeting the following priority research areas in climate and sustainability: 

  • Nature-based Solutions, Carbon Monitoring Reporting and Verification (MRV), Coastal Protection and Resilience 
  • Renewable Energy Systems, Decarbonization, Green Data Center Technologies 
  • Green Finance, Carbon-Market Integration, Climate-Related Decision Systems 
  • Health Impacts of Climate Change, Urban Heat, Air Quality 

Projects may approach these areas from any disciplinary or interdisciplinary perspective. Proposals must entail demonstrable research collaborations between partners from each institution and be jointly led by a PI from each institution.  

For each project, Duke will award up to $100,000 USD for Duke researchers, and NUS will award up to $120,000 SGD for NUS researchers.  

Awardees

Heat Resilience at the Last Mile: Trusted Community Mediators for Heat-Health Risk Communication in the United States and Singapore 

  • Ashley Ward Director, Heat Policy Innovation Hub, Nicholas Institute for Energy, Environment & Sustainability (Duke Lead PI)
  • Jason Kai Wei Lee Associate Professor; Director Heat Resilience & Performance Centre, NUS (NUS Lead PI)
  • Michelle Lewis - Community Outreach and Engagement Associate, Nicholas Institute for Energy, Environment & Sustainability (Duke Co-PI)
  • Joshua Dao-Wei Sim - Senior Research Fellow, Human Potential Translational Research Programme, NUS (NUS Co-PI)

Extreme heat creates a public health risk that communities often underestimate, even when scientific assessments show high vulnerability. Research shows that assessed heat risk and perceived heat risk can diverge, that heat risk perception varies across social groups, and that social capital shapes awareness, worry, and preparedness. This project asks how trusted intermediaries can help close the last mile between heat-health information and protective action. 

Wastewater Sentinels For Climate-Driven Foodborne Disease in Singapore

  • Lawrence David Associate Professor, Molecular Genetics & Microbiology, School of Medicine (Duke Lead PI)
  • Yann Boucher Research Associate Professor, Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health (NUS Lead PI)

Acute diarrheal disease is among the most climate-sensitive health burdens in Southeast Asia, and its drivers remain poorly resolved. In Singapore, enteric pathogen detections rise with temperature and peak in the warm mid-year months, and incidence of seafood-associated pathogens, such as vibrio, increase. Yet how this increase actually happens is little understood. What climate does to the foods people actually eat, the exposure route linking weather to infection, has never been measured at population scale. Uniting Duke’s molecular dietary surveillance with NUS’s Climate, Environment and Health Programme, we will build a economical climate-food-health sentinel for Singapore.

Blended Finance for Energy Transition in Asia

  • Sandeep Pai Executive in Residence, Nicholas Institute for Energy, Environment, and Sustainability (Duke Lead PI)
  • Weina Zhang Associate Professor, NUS Business School, Department of Finance, Sustainable and Green Finance Institute (SGFIN) (NUS Lead PI)
  • Li Peize Research Associate, Sustainable and Green Finance Institute (SGFIN) (NUS Co-PI)
  • Zhang Jiaxin Research Analyst, Sustainable and Green Finance Institute (SGFIN) (NUS Co-PI)
  • Aakanksha Maheshwari Assistant Director of Research and Administration, Nicholas Institute for Energy, Environment & Sustainability (Collaborator)

Asia’s energy transition faces a significant financing gap, with capital unevenly distributed across countries and project types. This project will examine how blended finance can mobilize private capital for energy transition projects in Asia. By combining project-level empirical analysis with qualitative case-study evidence, the project will generate actionable insights on how blended finance can be better designed, targeted, and implemented to close Asia’s energy transition financing gap.

Advancing Geothermal Energy by Integrating Brine Management and Critical Mineral Co-Products

  • Heileen Hsu-Kim Professor, Civil & Environmental Engineering (Duke Lead PI)
  • Weiyi Pan Assistant Professor, Civil & Environmental Engineering (NUS Lead PI)
  • Laura Dalton Assistant Professor, Civil & Environmental Engineering (Duke Co-PI)
  • Peter Malin Emeritus Professor, Nicholas School of the Environment (Duke Co-PI)
  • Michela Geri Assistant Professor, Mechanical Engineering & Material Science (Duke Co-PI)
  • Xiaogang He Assistant Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering (NUS Co-PI)
  • Soon Hoe Chew Assistant Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering (NUS Co-PI)
  • Sui Zhang Associate Professor, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering (NUS Co-PI)

Geothermal energy offers a stable, low-carbon solution for the global transition to renewable energy. However, its expansion depends on managing high-salinity brines that pose mineral scaling challenges yet also contain valuable critical minerals such as rare earth elements and lithium. This joint Duke-NUS project introduces a geochemistry-guided separation strategy that couples the study of fundamental subsurface processes that influence brine composition with advancements in membrane technologies to transform a waste liability into a resource. Ultimately, this project establishes geothermal systems as dual-resource platforms capable of co-producing both renewable energy and critical minerals, significantly contributing to decarbonization and critical mineral supply chain resilience.

Grant Timeline

  • April 10, 2026: Application period opens
  • June 1, 2026: Application period closes
  • Mid-to-Late July 2026: Applicants notified
  • September 1, 2026: Project start date
  • March 1, 2027: 6-month progress reports due (applicable to Duke lead PIs only)
  • February 29, 2028 or February 29, 2028: Project end date
  • March 31, 2028: Final report submission due

Application

The application period has closed, but you may view the Call for Proposals here. 

Contact Information

For further information or questions, please contact the point person for your respective university:

National University of Singapore

Brenda Lim, Manager

Office of the Deputy President (Research & Technology)

dprbox52@nus.edu.sg

Duke University

Robin Fail, Assistant Director of Climate and Sustainability Research

Office of Climate and Sustainability

robin.fail@duke.edu