Social Science Research Council
The Global Environmental Change Program (1989 – 1998)
Published on: Nov 13, 2007
Operating between 1989 and 1998, the Program for Research on Global
Environmental Change (GEC) was founded to build linkages between different
research communities, serving as a bridge between natural and social
scientists, and initiating large-scale collaborative research on the human
dimensions of global environmental changes.
With the support of the National Science Foundation, the Ford Foundation, and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the GEC program acted as a catalyst for the emerging interdisciplinary field of the human dimensions of global environmental change. The Committee for Research on Global Environmental Change, under the guidance of which programming unfolded, consisted of an interdisciplinary and institutionally diverse group of 10 key social and natural scientists who actively initiated germane environmental research projects. Over the years, many of the 20 scholars serving on GEC Committees went on to shape and promote contemporary environmental debates. Committee members became convening lead authors of assessments such as the “Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change” and the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). In 2005, Thomas C. Schelling, a committee member, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics. Others have served on the Human Dimensions of Global Change Committee for the NRC’s Climate Change Science Program (CCSP), U.S. Census Bureau, NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, etc. And other committee members proceeded to pursue these interests by leading important nongovernmental organizations like the Wildlife Conservation Society.
Achievements of this nine-year program include:
With the support of the National Science Foundation, the Ford Foundation, and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the GEC program acted as a catalyst for the emerging interdisciplinary field of the human dimensions of global environmental change. The Committee for Research on Global Environmental Change, under the guidance of which programming unfolded, consisted of an interdisciplinary and institutionally diverse group of 10 key social and natural scientists who actively initiated germane environmental research projects. Over the years, many of the 20 scholars serving on GEC Committees went on to shape and promote contemporary environmental debates. Committee members became convening lead authors of assessments such as the “Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change” and the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). In 2005, Thomas C. Schelling, a committee member, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics. Others have served on the Human Dimensions of Global Change Committee for the NRC’s Climate Change Science Program (CCSP), U.S. Census Bureau, NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, etc. And other committee members proceeded to pursue these interests by leading important nongovernmental organizations like the Wildlife Conservation Society.
Achievements of this nine-year program include:
-
Conferences: In June 1995, the committee was the lead sponsor of the First Open Meeting on the Human Dimensions of Global Environmental Change Community, at Duke University. Nearly 300 U.S and international scholars gathered for six plenary sessions.
-
Workshops: The GEC configured networks and international summer institutes, and built scholarly cohorts by organizing over 20 workshops, a third of which were held outside of the U.S. These workshops avoided piecemeal, noncumulative, noncomparable research by engaging with interdisciplinary and cross-cutting program areas.
-
Publications: The program and its working groups produced approximately 40 articles and books on topics such as water, land, climate change, energy, environmentalism and poverty, urban planning, international environmental agreements, and a study of adaptation in Canada, the EC, Germany, Hungary, Mexico, The Netherlands, Russia, the U.K. and the U.K.
-
Collaborations: In 1993, GEC’S Consortium on Land Use was instrumental in proposing the subject of global land use/cover as a core project for the International Geosphere/Biosphere Programme (IGBP) of the International Council of Scientific Union (ISCU). Other collaborations include those with the International Social Science Council (ISSC), the Smithsonian Institute, and the African Academy of Sciences.
Printer-friendly version