Mortenson Centerin Global Engineering & ResilienceUniversity of Colorado Boulder
a jointly developed concept
Mortenson Center
Mortenson Center
Both institutes share one mandate: water, environment, and health. The Mortenson Center in Global Engineering and Resilience and UNU-INWEH are jointly developing a partnership in three parts: a joint graduate program that credentials the next generation of engineers; a co-hosted global water-quality dataset and annual flagship report; and a shared field-practice base of programs reaching millions, where continuous sensing is already tied to outcomes-based finance. The partnership pairs CU Boulder's measurement, evidence, and finance with UNU's UN-Water positioning and member-state reach, and is sequenced to lead toward a joint UNU Hub.
Mortenson Center
UN University Institute for Water, Environment & Health · Hamilton, Canada
The two institutes share the same three-domain mandate — water, environment, and health — and bring complementary halves of one chain of custody for evidence: field-grade measurement and outcomes-based finance on one side, UN positioning, policy bridging, and global capacity-building on the other. The concept leads with a joint academic program, then extends into shared research and joint practice.
A joint graduate credential — students earn their CU Boulder degree and a UNU diploma through a small set of joint additions, modeled on the UNU-CCNY programs.
Co-hosting a UN-aligned open-data product and flagship report, and joint authorship on sensor-verified, outcomes-based finance across water, environment, and health.
A live operational base of environmental-health programs across sub-Saharan Africa as the testbed, with executive education and capacity-building for member states.
The academic program, the research partnership, and the practice partnership are not stand-alone deliverables — each is a deliberate step toward a shared destination: formalizing a joint UNU Hub on accountable water, environment, and health, differentiated from the existing UNU-INWEH Hubs by methodological focus (measurement-to-finance) rather than geography. The early wins build the track record, relationships, and shared infrastructure the Hub will stand on.
Across the two institutes, layers 01–03 are well established. Layer 04 — continuous ground-truth sensing wired directly to outcomes-based finance for water, environment, and health — is the distinctive focus this partnership is built to advance, and a line of work recognized by a 2025 IWA Water and Development Research Award.
Like the UNU-CCNY joint programs, students complete their existing CU Boulder degree while earning a UNU diploma through a small set of joint additions. The Mortenson Center already runs the building blocks — its Professional MS programs, a Graduate Certificate in Global Engineering (12 credits, 9 of which transfer into the MS), and a field Practicum across 80+ partner programs — so the UNU layer adds global credentialing, not a parallel degree.
Draft structure for discussion · modeled on the UNU-CCNY joint MS & PhD programs · applies to the Professional MS programs and PhD tracks · final configuration subject to UNU approval.
The research arm pairs the Mortenson Center's data infrastructure and operational evidence with UNU-INWEH's UN-Water positioning and convening. It anchors on the largest open microbial water-quality dataset as the first flagship, and extends across environmental health — household air pollution, climate, and child health.
Co-host the global microbial water-quality dataset (the largest open dataset of its kind) as a UN-aligned open-data product — UNU-INWEH providing UN-Water positioning and member-state convening, the Mortenson Center providing infrastructure and curation. Year-one deliverable: a co-branded annual reference report, with environment and health indicators to follow.
Joint authorship on the operational evidence base for sensor-verified outcomes-based finance across water, environment, and health — drawing on the partners' field programs and the dataset to build the citable foundation the UN system can stand behind.
A specialized course for UNU-INWEH's Online Learning Centre on in-situ environmental sensing, water-quality and environmental-health monitoring, and digital measurement-reporting-verification — capacity-building content the UN system does not currently offer.
Co-development of new project and program proposals — including alignment to emerging UNU initiatives such as the Sustainability Transitions Accelerator — that pair the partners' methods, data, and convening power.
The practice arm draws on the Mortenson Center's "Clean Water for Millions" flagship — seven carbon-financed safe-water programs across sub-Saharan Africa, targeting 5 million people and 3 million carbon credits by 2030, with field partners including the Millennium Water Alliance, LifeStraw, Helvetas, Asili, Water Mission, and Virridy. Alongside safe water, the programs reach into household energy, air quality, and child health — the real-world ground where sensor-verified outcomes-based finance is already in production. UNU-INWEH connects this practice to member-state policy, executive education, and capacity-building.
500+ schools serving ~600,000 students today, scaling to ~1,500 schools / ~1.5M students by 2028.
~4,500 schools; over one million children with safe drinking water at school.
~120,000 people across five counties, with ML-based borehole-functionality forecasting.
~1,100 active solar borehole systems across all 18 provinces; targeting 350,000 people by 2030.
100,000+ verified beneficiaries; 84 community-owned "Water Mama" enterprises; 60 km piped network; targeting 350,000 by 2030.
With Helvetas; targeting 350,000 people across three regions by 2030.
With Water Mission; 31 villages serving ~200,000 residents.
Well over two million beneficiaries today, targeting 5 million people and 3 million carbon credits by 2030.
The practice base is anchored in a decade-plus peer-reviewed cluster-RCT record spanning water, environment, and health. The Tubeho Neza programme — a cluster-randomized trial of carbon-credit-financed water filters and improved cookstoves across ~101,000 households in Western Province, Rwanda (The Lancet Planetary Health, with companion papers in Environmental Science & Technology, npj Clean Water, and Nature) — documented these effects across all three domains, with replicated impact after integration into Rwanda's national Community-Based Environmental Health Promotion Programme. Executive-education workshops would turn these operating models into a transferable practice for ministries, utilities, and implementers.
Mortenson CenterEach phase is deliberately sequenced so the early, low-friction wins build toward the shared destination — a joint UNU Hub on accountable water, environment, and health.
Stand up the global microbial water-quality dataset as a co-branded, UN-aligned open-data product — low-friction, high-visibility, and immediately useful to UN-Water and member states.
Publish the inaugural co-branded flagship report; launch the specialized Online Learning Centre course; begin joint authorship on the sensor-verified outcomes-based-finance evidence base across water, environment, and health.
Formalize the joint graduate credential between the Mortenson Center / CU Boulder and UNU, modeled on the UNU-CCNY joint programs, with co-supervision and a UN-system internship pathway.
Formalize the partnership as a UNU Hub themed on accountable water, environment, and health and outcomes-based finance — differentiated from the existing UNU-INWEH Hubs by methodological focus rather than geography, and the standing UN-system home for the measurement-to-finance stack. The earlier phases exist to make this Hub real.
If the concept fits both institutes, the partners would begin with the flagship dataset — and let it open the door to joint training, joint authorship, and ultimately a standing UNU Hub.
Agree to publish the global microbial water-quality dataset as a co-branded, UN-aligned open-data product.
Define the inaugural co-branded reference report and its annual cadence, spanning water, environment, and health.
Finalize the joint-program structure and the milestones that lead to formalizing the joint UNU Hub.