Every year, thousands of U.S. manufacturing and other industrial facilities submit reports on their waste management practices of certain toxic chemicals, including the release of those chemicals into the environment. The Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) Program makes data about management and releases of these chemicals available to everyone through a variety of online reports, search tools, and applications.

In Spring 2015, we challenged the academic community to find innovative and creative uses of TRI data and related information to promote more informed decision-making and action on the part of communities, manufacturers, and government.

2015 Challenge Results

We received eight outstanding applications in response to the 2015 Challenge, and we are excited to announce that we will be working with three new academic partners for the 2015-2016 academic year, as well as three partners continuing from the 2014 Challenge.

The three new proposals that were selected for the 2015 TRI University Challenge came from faculty at the following academic institutions:

• Indiana University-Purdue University-Indianapolis – IU Fairbanks School of Public Health
• Mercyhurst University – School of Health Professionals and Public Health
• University of North Carolina, Charlotte – Department of Computer Science

In addition to these three new projects, we will continue our partnerships with three multi-year projects selected in the 2014 Challenge:

• Southeastern Louisiana University – Department of Computer Science and Industrial Technology
• Tennessee State University – Geographic Information Sciences Laboratory
• University of South Carolina – Department of Geography

Learn more about each of these six projects on our 2015-2106 TRI University Challenge Academic Partners webpage.