Energy, Environment and Resources Center

EERC ~ About the EERC

• More Than A Quarter Century of Research Innovation
• Evolving Mission
• Sustainable Agenda
• Breadth, Depth, Quality
• University on Call
• Everybody Wins
• New Partnerships

More Than A Quarter Century of Research Innovation

The Energy, Environment and Resources Center (EERC) at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville is one of the nation's oldest and largest university-based multidisciplinary research units devoted to environmental issues. Formed on a modest scale in 1973 to engage university faculty and graduate students in policy research focused primarily on the Southeast, the Center now operates on an annual budget of $7 million, and its programmatic emphasis has expanded to incorporate regional, national, and global issues.

Evolving Mission

Throughout EERC's history, our research agenda has evolved largely in response to emerging environmental themes and opportunities. In our first decade, we addressed the challenge of ensuring a clean, affordable, and stable energy supply. To that end, we worked closely with regional and national partners, including the Tennessee Valley Authority, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and the U.S. Department of Energy, to structure a series of international energy symposia in conjunction with the 1982 Knoxville World's Fair. The symposia drew international energy experts together to take a critical look at energy production and demand in the wake of the energy crises of the 1970s and increased focus on environmental degradation.

In our second decade, we began to explore opportunities forimproved management of solid, hazardous, and nuclear wastes and played a key role in creating the Waste Management Research and Education Institute (WMREI), a state-funded Center of Excellence established in 1985 and housed at the University. Since its inception, WMREI, which remains a close affiliate of the EERC, has spearheaded projects in the areas of recycling, environmental education, biotechnology, and regional economicdevelopment. The institute played a leading role in crafting the Solid Waste Management Act of 1991, which continues to guide Tennessee's solid-waste-management policies.

Sustainable Agenda

More recently, we at EERC have embraced the principle of sustainable development, which cuts across numerous disciplines, industry segments, political boundaries, and populations. We believe that sustainability, to paraphrase the most widely cited definition, represents our best hope for meeting the needs of the current generation without jeopardizing the efforts of future generations to meet their own needs. And sustainable development's emphasis on the convergence of the social, environmental, and economic sectors provides a unique opportunity for the EERC to capitalize on its research strengths in those areas.

Under the rubric of sustainable development, our researchers have restored degraded urban waterways, created native landscapes that beautify manufacturing facilities while reducing environmental impacts, implemented "smart-growth" planning processes that balance economic development with historical and environmental preservation, and explored policy options for boosting adoption of alternative-fuel vehicles. These projects represent only the beginning of ways we can bring our resources to bear in shaping a sustainable future.

Breadth, Depth, Quality

While the focus of our research remains responsive to emerging environmental needs and trends, our methods, operating principles, and devotion to in-depth analysis have remained constant over time. Since the beginning, our mainstay has been unbiased, analytical, and multidisciplinary research reflecting the breadth, depth, and quality our sponsors have come to expect from a Center based at a fully staffed and accredited university.

The Center's multidisciplinary research staff now exceeds 75 and includes attorneys, biologists, political scientists, engineers, geographers, risk analysts, chemists, communicators, economists, information and computer-systems specialists, planners, sociologists, and educators.

Dr. Jack Barkenbus has served as the EERC's executive director since 1995, and his interdisciplinary background in political science and international studies provides an ideal perspective from which to guide the Center's multidisciplinary work. He follows in the footsteps of other strong Center leaders, including Dr. John Gibbons, EERC's first director and former science advisor to President Clinton.

University on Call

The strengths of its staff aside, the EERC's collaborative relationships with other university departments extend its expertise even further. In many ways, in fact, when sponsors solicit our participation in their projects, they are gaining access to an entire university. Indeed, because of our close affiliation with the various subunits of the University of Tennessee-Knoxville, our expertise runs as deep as that of the University itself, with its 11 colleges and numerous specialized schools and departments.

For instance, we frequently collaborate with researchers from the University's Transportation Center; the Environmental Toxicology Program; the Center for Environmental Biotechnology; and the departments of civil and environmental engineering, ornamental horticulture and landscape design, ecology and evolutionary biology, sociology, and computer science.

Everybody Wins

This collaboration benefits our sponsors, enhances career opportunities for the University's faculty and staff, and adds vitality to students' educational experiences. And though the Center is not a teaching, degree-granting program, we participate fully in the University's academic life by offering lectures, instructingcourses on an ad hoc basis, and inviting distinguished speakers to visit campus.

Though the EERC musters a unified response to research challenges in many fields, we are, in fact, a mosaic of many interlocking components represented by our subunits, which are described more fully on the pages that follow. Each subunit is a mature program boasting specialized skills, and the Center strives to create conditions that support institutional development while allowing our individual programs to thrive in an atmosphere of collaboration and creativity.

New Partnerships

The EERC remains receptive to new opportunities for research and collaboration, and we welcome requests for more information on our projects, programs, and staff. We invite you to peruse this Website and contact us if you'd like to learn more.