University of Tennessee at Knoxville
IN-2: Innovation 2

1)  Innovation credits are reserved for new, extraordinary, unique, ground‐breaking, or uncommon outcomes, policies, and practices that greatly exceed the highest criterion of an existing STARS credit or are not covered by an existing STARS credit.  

2)  In general, innovation credits should have roughly similar impacts or be on the same scale as Tier One credits.  

3)  The innovative practice, policy, program, or outcome should have occurred within the past three years.

4)  The innovative practice or program has to be something that the institution has already done; planned activities do not count.

5)  An institution can only claim a particular activity as an innovation credit once.  When re-submitting for a STARS rating, an innovation credit that the institution submitted previously cannot be re-submitted.

6) Practices, policies, and programs that were once considered innovative but are now widely adopted (e.g. being the first institution to enact a policy 20 years ago that is now common) may not be claimed as innovation credits.

7)  Multiple activities or practices whose sum is innovative can be considered for an innovation credit as long as those activities or practices are related.  For example, three innovative waste reduction programs in research laboratories could be listed together under a single innovation credit for Greening Laboratories.  Listing a series of unrelated accomplishments or events under a single innovation credit is not accepted.

8)  While the practices that led to receiving an award may be appropriate for an innovation credit, winning awards and/or high sustainability rankings in other assessments is not, in and of itself, grounds for an innovation credit. 

9)  Outcomes, policies, and practices that are innovative for the institution’s region or school type are eligible for innovation credits.

10)  When the innovation is part of a partnership, the summary provided must clearly describe  the institution’s role in the innovation.

All institutions may earn innovation credits. 

Institutions may earn up to 4 innovation credits.  Innovation credits are not required to be specific to any category and are scored separately.  An institution’s overall score is increased by the number of innovation credits it earns.  For example, if an institution achieved an overall score of 30 based on the three main categories, earning 2 innovation credits would raise its final score to 32. 

Please note that institutions will report on each innovation credit separately. 

Timeframe

Report on innovations that occurred during the past three years.  Planned activities or activities that happened more than three years ago do not count for these credits. 

Sampling and Data Standards

Not applicable