About us
University of Hawai‘i–West O‘ahu Institute for Research & Engaged Scholarship (IRES) serves the public good through active collaboration with community partners to address and impact key issues in our communities. IRES supports faculty scholarship that impacts community progress and transformation.
IRES provides institutional support and resources to support innovative growth and development of high quality applied research. IRES will establish guiding principles aligned to campus and strategic outcomes and appoint a faculty advisory board to setup and establish the process, goals, and outcomes for the design of the institute.
Message from the Chancellor
Aloha mai! To ensure that UH West Oʻahu lives into its mission and value proposition it is essential that we invest in scholarship that transforms, that makes a difference in the vibrant life of our communities. We can do this through faculty, staff and student inquiry, scholarship that brings together the knowledge well of the university and the diversities of community wisdom to address and resolve knotty 21st Century conundrums! The Institute for Research & Engaged Scholarship supports an infrastructure, a critical foundation for knowledge leaders to engage in innovation, technology and entrepreneurship to better our environment, strengthen our educational pathways, and foster healthy systems all leading to a high quality of life and place. I encourage you to learn how you can participate, how you can make a difference that leads to a more just society. E mālama pono!
Message from the Director, Dr. Lea Lani Kinikini
I love that the critical foundation for knowledge at the Institute starts with a loyalty to the land and the people on the land – our precious pae ʻāina, or archipelagos, across the vast Moananuiākea or Oceania. My purpose as Director of IRES is to engage in innovation and design thinking to “break the box”, to unite our diverse practices as people of/in/for Oceania as a region and Hawaiʻi specifically, to better our faculty, student and community learning experiences. I strongly believe we must transform our environments as well as our health, social, economic, educational and justice systems through liberatory practices to create places (like UHWO) where students can serve our communities meaningfully, in order to thrive and reach their highest potential.
Guiding Principles for Programs and Projects
IRES engages and connects faculty, students, and community partners through caring, patient, sometimes groundbreaking, but always collaborative research and transformation initiatives.
- Engage faculty, staff and students in interrelated, transdisciplinary, and innovative scholarship.
- Foster systemic impact and transformative outcomes.
- Empower participants in scholarship that is collaborative and participatory.
- Strengthen and increase community access to our campus’ expertise including faculty, programs, and resources.
- Address campus and/or community needs that connect teaching, research, and service to redefine a scholars’ work as generating, disseminating, applying, and preserving knowledge for the direct benefit of the communities we serve.
Research Cluster Areas
The following focus areas are essential to IRES and act as drivers of success. Not only do they align with University of Hawaiʻi–West Oʻahu’s Strategic Plan, these focus areas also reflect the importance of transdisciplinarity, an approach that incorporates knowledge from multiple perspectives.
- Aloha ʻĀina: Justice
- Mālama ʻĀina: Care for Land, People and Resources
- Mauli Ola: Health and Well-being
- Au ʻŌiwi: Thriving Learning, Teaching, Leadership
Strategic Vision
IRES builds a thriving culture of engaged scholarship by supporting faculty grant seeking activities to promote the development of high quality applied research and innovation. IRES goals include:
- Increase research & non-research extramural funds for UH West Oʻahu.
- Establish a thriving research culture of applied inquiry and engaged scholarship and evaluation/assessment.
- Foster a culture of innovation and grant seeking and build faculty capacity in engaged scholarship and grant writing skills.
- Improve and strengthen grant administration and grant development activities.
- Support faculty efforts to develop and sustain research and engage students in research initiatives and opportunities.
- Develop and improve campus classroom and outdoor spaces to foster undergraduate applied research experiences and support core research facilities.
- Improve internal and external data gathering and analysis to enhance grant applications, research, and grant reporting.
- Enhance research, innovation and engaged scholarship across the campus community.
The IRES Logic Model serves as a framework and tool used to evaluate the effectiveness of IRES programs and initiatives.