Join Our Academic Network

If your department college or university conducts research--or offers curricula--related to the revitalization of communities and/or the restoration of natural resources, we would like to invite you to represent your institution in Revitalization Institute’s Academic Network.  Download 2-page agreement. Just fill in the contact info, sign it, and fax it to 416-491-0854 (Toronto, ON Canada).

Revitalization Institute's Academic Network connects educators and researchers throughout the 12 sectors of restorative development to advance the revitalization of communities/regions/nations and their natural resources. We are looking not just to advance knowledge in each of those sectors, but to facilitate new knowledge about the emerging discipline of Integrated Revitalization: the practice of revitalizing the built, natural, and socioeconomic environments of entire communities, regions, and nations.

Our Academic Network is designed to accomplish four goals related to the fast-growing, $2 trillion/year economic sector known as restorative development:

• Network existing pockets of restoration research worldwide, so they can share results

• Identify gaps in restorative development research, and plug them

• Merge new and existing research with the development of curricula and new degrees

• Facilitate related technology transfer.

Besides the development of leading-edge research and curricula for restorative development, many academic institutions on this page have allied with Revitalization Institute to accomplish one or more of the following goals:

• Sponsor revitalization workshops for communities and regions;

• Receive and administer funding from foundations & other donors who wish to underwrite our workshops in their area;

• Establish new revitalization-related events, or enhance existing events; and/or

• Link their faculty and/or students to programs and research that helps them design and implement more-integrated approaches to community renewal or natural resource restoration.

Maybe the best way to educate your faculty in integrated restoration and revitalization techniques and tools--while simultaneously involving them in real-world projects and programs that could advance their research--is to allow them to volunteer as a Guest Expert on the faculties of our Workshops.  No honoraria are paid, but travel expenses are normally paid for Guest Experts from academic and non-profit institutions.

Our Academic Network is still forming, so there are no formal duties required of members at this point, nor are their any dues. What do we expect from you? Four things:

1. Assign a single individual to represent your school in the network. This person should have good web skills/email access, and should be directly involved with the restoration and/or revitalization disciplines of interest to Revitalization Institute’s members.

2. Provide a list of present and planned courses and research programs directly related to restorative development (in all 12 sectors), community revitalization, etc. In the future, you will be able to update this information on our website.

3. Keep us informed of any events, new courses/degrees, etc. at your school or in your area that are related to the subject matter discussed above.

4. If you can send a representative to our future annual conferences, that would be appreciated, but you are not obligated to do so. For the foreseeable future, all meetings and communications will be electronic in nature.

In return, we will do the following for you:

1. We will likely become a source of research and scholarship money for our member schools. As the Academic Network grows, we expect to receive grants and donations from foundations, agencies, corporations, and individuals that wish to advance the restoration of our communities and natural resources by funding new research, sponsoring scholarships, endowing chairs, etc.]

2. We will expose you to complementary research programs around the world, apprise you of new research that’s needed, and help you find businesses wishing to license restorative technologies developed at your institution.

3. We will display your hyperlinked logo on our Academic Network web page (a reciprocal link is appreciated, but not required). This can direct reporters, writers, and other favorable news media attention to your school, as well as prospective students and faculty.

4. To help your institution get off to a fast start, Storm Cunningham (Revitalization Institute's founder, and author of The Restoration Economy (2002) and reWealth! (2008) will do a FREE keynote talk at an event on your campus. You can choose to include faculty, staff, and/or students in the audience. This is no small benefit: Storm is the world's leading professional speaker on the subject of restorative development. He normally charges $10,000 + expenses for a 1-hour talk at non-profit/government events ($12,500 at for-profit events). To help support Revitalization Institute, he has agreed to donate one talk, and his travel time, for each new member of our Academic Network. We only ask that you pay his expenses, if travel is involved.

If you wish to join our Academic Network, please download an invitation letter, sign the form at the end of this letter, and fax the entire document to 1-416-491-0854.to Bill Humber's attention.  Call Bill Humber at 1-416-491-5050 ext. 2500 if you have questions.