Member Spotlight: Colorado research universities to lead U.S. contribution to global environmental initiative

July 2, 2014—The United States has been selected as one of five international hubs for Future Earth, an ambitious 10-year research initiative to address global environmental change solutions and actions. The U.S. hub will be headquartered in Colorado and managed jointly by Colorado State University and the University of Colorado-Boulder.

Other Future Earth global hubs will be located in Canada, France, Japan and Sweden. In addition to these global hubs, a number of regional hubs are established or in development in Latin America, the Middle East, Asia, and in Africa.

The selection was announced July 2 by the International Council for Science, or ICSU, based in Paris and the interim secretariat for Future Earth.

Future Earth will provide a global knowledge and collaboration platform and deliver a step-change in the way science for sustainability is produced and used.

According to Future Earth: “The need for knowledge to achieve global sustainability is twofold. Firstly, we need to pursue longstanding efforts to understand how the Earth system works and how its many natural and social components interact. This calls for increased collaboration between disciplines and knowledge domains to integrate disciplinary strengths, and to develop research themes and processes that are better suited to addressing interconnected and multi-faceted problems. Secondly, the scale and magnitude of global environmental change and the risk posed to ecosystems and societies requires a bridging of the gap between science, policy and practice, to deliver knowledge that will effectively support decisions and actions towards sustainability. This will be achieved through effective cooperation with funders and research users, including decision makers and the private sector, to identify research priorities and deliver knowledge for solutions.”

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:: COLORADO STATE UNIVERSITY:: UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO:: FUTURE EARTH