The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill announced Wednesday that Brad Ives will lead the recently created North Carolina Policy Collaboratory as its director, the News & Observer of Raleigh reported.
Ives currently serves as UNC’s associate vice chancellor for campus enterprises and its chief sustainability officer. He also served as the interim director at the collaboratory, or collaborative laboratory, which is housed in the university.
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The collaboratory was set up by the legislature last year to facilitate discussions on environmental policy between scientists and state and local governments. However, some environmental activists and university researchers initially expressed concern that creation of the center was legislative overreach and that scientific voices would be overwritten by political ones.
The collaboratory is now set to begin research on surface-water nutrient strategies and aquaculture with the help of university scientists.
A research director has not yet been named, and while UNC said the search to fill the position is nationwide, Jeffery Warren, a science adviser to state Senate leader Phil Berger, R-Guilford, has been considered by many a likely candidate.
