Research & Projects Overview
Our Current Initiatives
At the heart of all Gund Institute efforts lies an active core of research projects and programs that work together to develop new ideas, test existing theories, and put the best of both into real-world practice.
Ongoing research is focused on several broad areas of fundamental concern. These include the application of science in economic decision-making; the intrinsic value of ecosystems and the services they provide; integrated community participation in economic design and development; and the development of accurate measurements of system health and sustainability.
Gund Institute projects both feed into and emerge out of these research efforts. Conducted on scales large and small in communities throughout the world, they occupy a wide swath of both virtual and physical terrain. Current projects include the valuation of natural services in various ecosystems; analyses of human-settled watersheds; field-study atelier workshops in tropical ecosystems; the development of web-accessible databases; and creating a digital infrastructure for collaborative modeling.
In addition to these projects, we are currently developing two overarching documents of paramount importance,
Envisioning a Sustainable and Desirable America, and the
Earth Shareholder Report. Embracing larger perspectives, these ground-breaking efforts translate our vision into concrete maps that nations can follow to an economically secure and environmentally viable future.
Gund Institute research falls into the following categories:
