UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — In mid-October, a delegation from La Universidad de Bogotá Jorge Tadeo Lozano (UTadeo ) in Bogotá, Colombia visited Penn State to participate in a week-long WEF-Nexus Colombia Partnership Meeting. This meeting pushed forward the partnership between the two universities within Water, Energy and Food (WEF) Nexus activities.

WEF-Nexus Colombia Partnership

The Penn State Water-Energy-Food (WEF) Nexus community is focused on understanding the complex challenges associated with water-energy-food systems, developing sustainable solutions, and promoting sustainable development and capacity building at local and global levels. The collaboration between Penn State and UTadeo was initiated in 2018 with a grant from the 100,000 Strong in the Americas Innovation Fund. Since then, the partnership has grown into a WEF-Nexus Colombia Program supporting projects addressing community level challenges in the departments of La Guajira, Magdalena and Cundinamarca in Colombia. The projects are supported through a seed-grant program with funds provided by the U.S. Embassy in Colombia, Penn State Global and Ag Sciences Global. The 1st annual partnership meeting in October 2021 brought together collaborators from Colombia and U.S. to share their experiences, discuss their results from current projects and chart the next phase of the collaborations.

The beginnings of WEF-Nexus Colombia

In 2018, Paige Castellanos, assistant research professor and director of the Gender Equity through Agricultural Research and Education Initiative at Penn State; and Julián Prieto, then the head of National and International Cooperation at UTadeo, were awarded a grant by the 100,000 Strong in the Americas program from the Department of State. According to the website, the program is “the leading hemispheric-wide initiative supported by the U.S. Department of State, U.S. Embassies, and Partners of the Americas in partnership with visionary companies, foundations, and education institutions working to strengthen collaboration among governments, business, and academia — critical to economies in the Americas.” Through this program, Penn State partnered with UTadeo on student exchange focused on post-conflict projects with rural communities in Colombia. A group of Colombian students and faculty come to Penn State to take rural sociology training and five Penn State students traveled to Colombia to work with the communities.

“I remember editing the initial proposal on the plane from Bogota to Newark,” said Siela Maximova, co-director, program of the molecular biology of cacao, and director, Latin America and the Caribbean, Penn State Global. Maximova is one of the leaders of a program called Cacao for Peace Colombia, a program managed by USDA-Foreign Agricultural Service and funded by USAID to support the development of the cacao and chocolate industry in Colombia. The program continues to this day, but those early days showed Maximova that there was real potential for a broader collaboration.

“We spent a lot of time thinking about strategic areas for Penn State to build partnerships in Colombia,” Maximova said. “I met with [former Vice Provost] Michael Adewumi and [former Associate Vice Provost] Rob Crane in Global Programs to see how we could work together.”

Crane pitched the idea of a WEF collaboration, since Penn State had just launched WEF-Nexus Initiative focused on Africa. Penn State had faculty leaders in the area, he said, and he saw potential for a broader collaboration.

“A few things converged,” Maximova recalls. “The leadership in Global was willing to listen; UTadeo was excited to work with us on WEF; and there was a unique political situation where the U.S. embassy in Colombia and the Colombian government were both committed to working together to support science diplomacy.”

Once it had been decided that WEF would be the area of focus, Maximova began collaborating with Prieto and Isaac Dyner, dean of the College of Engineering and Natural Sciences at UTadeo, to bring together faculty interests.

“We got strong support from what was then called Global Programs and from the College of Ag administration,” Maximova said.

With support from Global Programs (now Penn State Global), the International Programs office in the Penn State College of Agricultural Sciences (now Ag Sciences Global), and the administration of UTadeo, Maximova and Prieto put together a joint seed program, with funding matched by Penn State, the U.S. Embassy in Colombia, and the Colombian Institute of Educational Credit and Technical Studies Abroad (ICETEX). This seed program funded three WEF Nexus projects in Colombia and the travel of the Colombian participants to the United States. To advance the partnership forward Rob Crane (Penn State Global) and Deanna Behring (Ag Sciences Global) supported Latin America faculty fellowship.

The projects

Multiple projects have begun under this umbrella and were discussed at the meeting.

“A Water-Energy-Food Nexus approach for describing climate change impacts on water-based ecosystem services by the Páramo of Chingaza, Colombia”

This project is a strategic research collaboration between UTadeo and Penn State to study the effects of climate and land use changes on water provision, food security and downstream energy generation by the Páramo of Chingaza. Paramos are high elevation mountain ecosystems typical of the Andean Mountains, located above the tree line but below permanent snow line (3000-4800 m). This project is led by Michael Ahrens, research group leader, Limnology and Aquatic Ecology at UTadeo, and Andrew Warner, director of the Penn State Water Initiative and director of the Pennsylvania Water Resources Research Center at Penn State. The collaboration involves 10 faculty members from Penn State and UTadeo.

“It has been a real thrill and privilege to work on this project,” said Ahrens. “The great diversity of the team has been a real asset in generating new research ideas and hypotheses.”

The project has seen two funding proposals written already, with a third in progress. Eight UTadeo honors, doctoral- or masters-level students are working on theses related to the project.

“This collaboration has opened up a plethora of new research avenues and opportunities for other academic collaboration, and we are very excited to see what the near future holds, in terms of funding and new collaborators,” added Ahrens.

"Multidisciplinary assessment of the livelihood conditions of the vulnerable communities of La Guajira, with a roadmap for change under the WEF Nexus approach"

This collaborative project applies the WEF-Nexus approach to a community level, working with Wayuu indigenous communities in the northern region of Colombia. The work focuses on understanding community perceptions of water, energy, and food use and availability, and how these critical resources are interrelated. The project also applies a gender lens to uncover differences between men and women in perceptions, experiences, and access to resources, with additional focus on understanding changes due to climate change. The PIs are working jointly with community members to develop strategies, such as sustainable community gardens, to address local food and nutritional security.

Co-PIs Paige Castellano, assistant research professor and director of the Gender Equity through Agricultural Research and Education Initiative at Penn State, and Carlos Ricardo Bojacá, professor in the College of Natural Sciences and Engineering at UTadeo, both bring areas of expertise to the project.

“These projects are both incredibly rewarding and challenging. I am excited to collaborate with such a great team of researchers in Colombia, and I continue to be impressed with their ability to adapt and their willingness to take on new parts of the project,” said Castellanos. “Across all of the projects under the WEF partnership, we have the opportunity to highlight inequities based on gender or faced by other marginalized groups and investigate potential solutions at multiple scales.”

“My participation in this project has been enriching to the extent that it has allowed me to work in a new region and under a different approach to my traditional lines of research,” said Bojacá. “The interdisciplinary work with the Penn State team has allowed me to learn and apply new perspectives for social work with communities.”

“Piloting a Water-Energy-Food Nexus Model for improving smallholder livelihoods and environmental sustainability in Magdalena, Colombia”

This project seeks to understand how food supply relates to water and energy availability within indigenous and smallholder communities. The project involves initial stages of WEF-Nexus modeling and also seeks to improve the food security in the communities by installing agricultural gardens and sharing knowledge related to aspects such as soil fertility, water quality, and alternative pest control methods to the use of chemical pesticides.

This project is led by Rodrigo Gil-Castañeda, professor in the College of Engineering and Natural Sciences at UTadeo, along with co-PIs Luz Stella Fuentes and Bojacá, also from the College of Engineering and Natural Sciences, and Rachel Brennan, associate professor, civil and environmental engineering and director, Water-Energy-Food Nexus Initiative at Penn State.

“Working on this project has allowed me to have a broader perspective of sustainable development within communities that have historically been marginalized. Understanding that, for example, food assistance programs within indigenous communities prevent starvation but change ancestral dietary habits and disincentivize agricultural activities,” said Gil-Castañeda. “I am excited to articulate the interests of the community in relation to water, energy and food with the policies defined by local decision makers.”

The visit

Things were moving along quickly and a visit was planned for the middle of 2020. Then, the pandemic hit. Virtual collaboration continued, but face-to-face meeting was impossible. Luckily, all the PIs from the Penn State side had previously visited Colombia.

The time over quarantine was spent consolidating research themes and implementing specific projects that could be carried out safely. Maximova and Prieto spent time coordinating and facilitating connections, strengthening research teams, and getting people more comfortable with the WEF concept.

When the opportunity arose to organize a visit, they jumped at the chance. Hence the first annual meeting of the WEF-Nexus Colombia partnership visit took place Oct. 18-21 at Penn State's University Park Campus. It involved 34 participants from Penn State, including faculty, students and staff; 13 faculty from UTadeo; and one participant from Fundación Alpina, Colombia.

In his opening remarks, Roger Brindley, vice provost for Penn State Global, emphasized that WEF-Nexus programs like the one in Colombia — with focus on transdisciplinary research, global learning and development — are strategic for Penn State. Brindley opened the week’s events with a presentation on the University’s vision for global engagement.

The week was spent getting the collaborators familiar with Penn State and the Penn State system; updating each other on the status of each project under the WEF umbrella; and figuring out the most effective ways to push the program forward. For example, one of the sessions was focused on grant-writing and navigating complex multi-stake holder proposals.

“The WEF Nexus initiative has shown its power to develop research projects with a direct impact in communities and the environment,” said Andres Franco, vice rector of UTadeo. “Our collaborative work for the last three years has shown the potential of our relationship and the challenge we have ahead in turning this initiative into a formal program, not only with local impact, but also into a regional initiative.”

The future

Moving forward, the partnership between Penn State and UTadeo looks to continue to grow — both deeper and broader.

“We are going to build and expand on WEF,” said Maximova. “And we are excited about that. But we are also inquiring — what else is out there? What else could we collaborate on that would be beneficial for all — students, faculty, the local and global communities?”

There are over 8,000 faculty at Penn State, Maximova pointed out, so she and Prieto want to build the Colombia-Penn State network outside of WEF as well. During the visit, the Colombian delegates were given the opportunity to meet with other Penn State faculty who may not necessarily be working in WEF.

“We have a strong relationship with the embassy in Colombia,” said Prieto. “And we’re working with consultants and other experts to figure out how to best create and ensure sustainability of these partnerships.” Along with more support from Penn State Global, the College of Agricultural Sciences, and others, the hope is that Penn State’s activities in Colombia increase exponentially.

“It takes a strong team and support from faculty and administration to do this,” Maximova said. “We’re humbled to have all of this support.”

For more information on Penn State’s activities with WEF in Colombia, contact Siela Maximova, snm104@psu.edu; and Julián Prieto, jjp6534@psu.edu.