YORK UNIVERSITY and the University of Toronto won a $750,000 federal grant for a program to apply academic research on the environment and sustainability to the community to encourage public action.

Research will focus on the looming food production crisis, supplying water quality kits to citizens and high-school students, developing comprehensive Internet-based reports on the release of toxic pollutants, and the creation of a model charter and bylaws on sustainability that will form part of the Canadian contribution to the final draft of the People's Earth Charter to be presented to the UN Earth Council in 2002.

"This will be a model for forging alliances between university researchers, governments and community leaders to encourage sustainability and protect and preserve the environment," said Professor David Bell, co-director of the joint program and director of the York Centre for Applied Sustainability.