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  • Strategic Collaborations:
    1.     » Center for Ocean Solutions
    2.     » Food Security & the Environment
    3.     » Natural Capital Project
  • Townhall Meetings:
    1.     » Sustainable Built Environment

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  • Strategic Collaborations:
    1.     » Center for Ocean Solutions
    2.     » Food Security & the Environment
    3.     » Natural Capital Project
  • Uncommon Dialogues:
    1.     » Biofuels
    2.     » Carbon Offsets
    3.     » Climate Change
    4.     » Pacific Salmon
    5.     » U.S. Farm Bill
  • Townhall Meetings:
    1.     » Sustainable Built Environment

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RESEARCH

> Overview

To find solutions to environmental and sustainability challenges, Stanford is fundamentally changing the way it does business. First, because these challenges are too complex to solve by traditional disciplinary approaches alone, we must work on far broader interdisciplinary scales than we ever have. More than 250 faculty and research professionals from across all seven schools, plus independent labs and centers, conduct environmental research at Stanford; of those, nearly 100 are involved directly with the Woods Institute.

We also must bridge our knowledge with the applied expertise of decision-makers outside the university, so that effective ideas get translated into action. We are working with many partner organizations, from research institutions and other universities to NGOs and local, regional, national and international government agencies. Finally, we must concentrate our work in areas where our expertise affords us the greatest potential to make the most significant contributions.

Focal Areas
We have identified four focal areas where Stanford already has great strengths and where we believe our efforts are likely to have the biggest impact:

• Energy and Climate Systems
• Land Use and Conservation
• Oceans and Estuaries
• Freshwater

Fostering Collaborative Research
To encourage collaborative research, the Woods Institute is developing three major research programs:

• Environmental Venture Projects. The EVP program provides seed funding for promising, potentially transformative research involving interdisciplinary teams of Stanford faculty.
• Strategic Collaborations. The institute supports major collaborations involving outstanding Stanford researchers who are combining forces with organizations beyond the campus to address global sustainability challenges. Current collaborations focus on natural capital, climate change goals in California, energy efficiency, food security and oceans.
• Affiliates. The Woods Institute will be launching an affiliates program to help businesses meet sustainability challenges. Interdisciplinary teams of Stanford experts will work with participating companies on issues ranging from end-use energy efficiency to supply-chain security to sustainable land-use management. The program will support a variety of activities, including exploratory research into novel solutions to issues of common concern; strategic problem-solving workshops; Ph.D. support programs that match students with company mentors in areas of mutual interest; and opportunities for company scientists to collaborate with Stanford researchers on a visiting basis.