Building knowledge infrastructure systems through university-supported climate collectives

Abstract Knowledge-based organizational capabilities are critical for continued human development and flourishing in the Anthropocene. Population growth, spatial development and unsustainable resource use are all driving a need for new and diverse forms of knowledge to adapt social and physical infrastructures to climate change-driven environmental hazards. Despite a vast and expanding scholarship on environmental impacts and policy interventions, scholars have devoted less attention to how political systems or complex organizations curate and translate knowledge into implementation guidance or practice. This article addresses this challenge by empirically exploring a concept called “knowledge infrastructure systems,” developed by interdisciplinary sustainability scholars to broaden analytic attention to the methods by which organizations and resource users mobilize knowledge into practice. State and local governments are on the front lines of the implementation of many national climate policies. Yet, climate vulnerabilities and organizational capacities for planning and implementing innovative programs vary significantly between regions and between rural-suburban-urban divides. While federal funds for climate work in the United States have increased opportunities for communities, the successful implementation of these intergovernmental programs is challenged by the limited capacity of the communities these funds aim to support. Through an analysis of text and interview data, this article examines the capacity-building efforts and roles that university-based collaborative networks played in the rollout of one federal initiative, the Climate Pollution Reduction Grant Program. We argue that greater attention to capacity-building and “knowledge infrastructure” is necessary to leverage funding opportunities for climate initiatives.