About Us
Our Mission: To advance global sustainability through new knowledge and practical, fair solutions to pressing environmental challenges.
The Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment is working toward a future in which societies meet people’s needs for water, food, health and other vital services while sustaining the planet. Part of the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability, Woods serves as the university's hub for interdisciplinary research about the environment. We bring together Stanford faculty, researchers and students from all seven schools, fostering research collaborations that can tackle challenges too complex for any one discipline to solve alone.
Sustainability is, at its core, about people and planet. In the Woods Institute, this means co-developing solutions, working with diverse collaborators, embracing a wide range of theories of change, and prioritizing equitable outcomes. We strive to create an environment that encourages, nurtures, and celebrates academic collaborations as well as cross-sector engagement. Partnerships with the private sector, governments at all levels, and diverse faces of civil society are essential for understanding key issues, opportunities, constraints, allies, and competitors. Partnerships also are essential for developing, deploying, and scaling real-world solutions. More broadly, success depends on engaging the widest possible range of those who may be affected, from customers to communities negatively impacted by solutions.
The Woods Institute leverages the convening power of Stanford to foster this kind of far-reaching engagement, connecting Stanford's experts to their counterparts in government, business, NGOs, foundations and other academic institutions. We see environmental issues embedded in a complex world, with every issue connected to many others through diverse Earth-system and human processes.
Our Vision and Values: Unique opportunities come from combining cutting-edge scholarship, diverse partnerships and deep engagement across sectors and disciplines. We value collaborative approaches, systems thinking, intellectual boldness and a commitment to just outcomes.
Affiliated Faculty and Researchers
Comprising about 12 percent of Stanford University’s faculty and research professionals, our 268 fellows and affiliated faculty are leaders in their academic fields. They bring expertise from across Stanford’s seven schools – business, earth sciences, education, engineering, humanities and sciences, law and medicine – to our pioneering work on environment and sustainability issues.
Our Staff
Our staff of dedicated professionals is the driving force behind the Institute's varied programs and initiatives. By providing administrative, communications, conference/events, external affairs, finance, human resources, program, IT/Web and other services, they support scholars across Stanford while advancing Woods’ external engagement, leadership and research funding programs.
Working in DC and Sacramento
Decision-makers need relevant, credible science that is understandable and actionable to make critical choices about the future of our planet. Woods representation in Washington, D.C., allows our faculty and scholars to play a greater role in providing this vital scientific research to policy- and decision-makers in government, non-profits, think tanks and other organizations. The office is a primary vehicle for connecting our latest environmental findings to the policy community, enabling Woods to serve as an important resource.
Our Advisors
The Ward W. and Priscilla B. Woods Institute for the Environment is guided by an 22-member advisory council. The council is composed of members from a variety of sectors who share our research community’s commitment to seeking practical solutions for people and the planet. Council members provide valuable external perspectives, offer a critical review of the Institute's current academic, research, and outreach programs and plans, and provide insight and support for the institute's strategic direction and overall objectives.
