Moving the Needle: Designing Institutions To Make a Difference in Global Issues

Many educational institutions are moving to address the educational and research needs of sustainability science.  However, it is less clear how academic centers can meanigfully engage outside stakeholders, especially from business, government, NGOs, media and beyond.  What new institutional structures and processes are needed to make this happen?  What kinds of new professionsal do we need to translate sustainability science to meaningful outside action?  What incentives are needed within academia for this to work?  In this presentation, we will explore these questions, and possible answers stemming from our experiences with the Institute on the Environment at the University of Minnesota.