The Arizona Board of Regents Innovation Fund is providing monies for three unique projects organized by researchers from Arizona State University, Northern Arizona University, and University of Arizona. The money is coming from Arizona's 0.6 percent state sales tax increase to support colleges.

One project, “LiveData: A Digital Research Infrastructure for Arizona’s 21st Century Universities" led by the Global Institute of Sustainability's Philip Tarrant, will provide one common platform to store and share Arizona universities' data and research used to gain additional funding and find future partnerships.

A second, led by Sustainability Scientist Rosa Krajmalnik-Brown, studies gut microbes' role in Autism Spectrum Disorders to improve the lives of children suffering from constant diarrhea or constipation.

Lastly, Sustainability Scientist Rolf Halden is leading a team on the further development of Arizona Environmental Grid Infrastructure Service, an informatic geospatial data system that all three universities can use to conduct environmental studies.