Institutes and centers
The institutes draw together faculty and students from across disciplines within the university to create teams working on common problems in collaboration with partners in the world.
Stanford has a history of fostering interdisciplinary collaboration through institutes that support teams of researchers focused on challenges that span disciplines. For more than a decade, the Woods Institute for the Environment and the Precourt Institute for Energy have inspired collaborations in energy and the environment and engaged with external partners locally and globally. In the coming years, those institutes will be joined by the new Institute for Sustainable Societies. Together, they will fund interdisciplinary scholarship, accelerate hiring of key faculty and staff, support cross-cutting curricula to engage undergraduate and graduate students, and other activities that draw the entire university into sustainability research and education.
Over time, each of the institutes will add initiatives that bring in new faculty hires, provide seed funding for collaborative research, and offer programmatic support.
Woods Institute for the Environment
The mission of the Woods Institute is to produce breakthrough environmental knowledge and solutions that sustain people and planet today and for generations to come. They are working toward a future in which societies meet people’s needs for water, food, health, and other vital services while sustaining the planet.
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Precourt Institute for Energy
The Precourt Institute is focused on creating a world with sustainable, affordable, secure energy for all by concentrating the talents of the university on energy research and education, from basic science and technology to policy and business.
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Institute for Sustainable Societies
The new Institute for Sustainable Societies will build on the interdisciplinary model pioneered by Woods and Precourt and adds critical new attention to issues of institutional and economic infrastructure, and the politics of transitioning to more sustainable ways of life. The institute will include new initiatives focused on Culture, behavior & communications, Environmental governance, Environmental justice, and Sustainable cities.