Where Research Leads to Results: A Year of Thinking + Doing
How can we help groundbreaking ideas create better lives around the world?
From 2019 to 2024, researchers from Columbia, UC Berkeley, and UC Santa Barbara joined with a local medical center on a project to improve household air quality in Ghana by encouraging the use of cleaner cooking fuel.
Traditional cooking fuels, such as wood and charcoal, have led to significant indoor air pollution in millions of homes, so these researchers, along with local technology partners, developed ways to make clean cooking fuels more affordable and accessible for families.
Families breathing cleaner air at home.
That was the result of just one of the many projects Columbia Global supported last year. In total, we awarded 141 fellowships and grants in 2024 — the most ever in a single year.
Each Columbia Global research award supports promising work that is dedicated to positively impacting people around the world.
Much of this funding was awarded through six annual opportunities for faculty and students:
- President’s Global Innovation Fund
- Columbia Global Resilience Fund
- Early Career Faculty Impact Fellowship
- Columbia World Projects Social Impact Awards
- Columbia Global Center Rio: Climate Hub Awards
- Center for Political Economy Graduate Student Grants
Funded projects focused on critical issues, such as health, migration and social justice, urban and community resilience, education and capacity building, labor relations, climate solutions, and media and information integrity.
The surge in our funding of such vital projects in 2024 created more opportunities than ever for faculty, scholars, and students to pursue research that could lead to real change in people's lives.
These awards are part of Columbia Global’s commitment to serve as a nexus for learning and intellectual exploration, as well as a catalyst for creativity and impact locally and globally.
"This program was a fantastic opportunity to connect with others across Columbia outside of my original network and to think broadly about the potential for increasing the impact of my research."
- Rachel Cummings, Early Career Faculty Impact Fellow
