South SFV Today

The Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability has announced eight interconnected Solution Areas to guide its research over the next decade. This initiative aims to translate Stanford's research into large-scale solutions and inform decision-makers in policy and business.

Based on faculty input and an assessment of where Stanford can have the most significant impact, the selected areas are climate, water, energy, food, risk resilience and adaptation, nature, cities, and platforms and tools for monitoring and decision-making.

"Solution Areas identify and leverage the critical junctions between the most pressing global sustainability challenges and the areas where Stanford has the talent and expertise to find solutions," said Dean Arun Majumdar. "This collaborative all-campus approach expands and strengthens our commitment to using all the power we have – the knowledge, the education, the talent, the innovation, the resources, the influence – to build a thriving planet for future generations."

In each Solution Area, two types of research initiatives will be developed. The first type is Integrative Projects managed by school institutes such as the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment, Precourt Institute for Energy, and a planned Sustainable Societies Institute. These projects will focus on decade-long themes through interdisciplinary collaboration.

Chris Field, Director of the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment stated that this new commitment “will provide both resources and coordination that expand Stanford faculty’s capacity to deliver sustainability solutions at scale.”

The second type is Flagship Destinations managed by Stanford’s Sustainability Accelerator. These projects aim to address Earth’s challenges with specific targets like removing billions of tons of greenhouse gases annually by mid-century. Future Flagship Destinations will be announced later this week.

While Integrative Projects aim to produce knowledge leading to eventual solutions, Flagship Destination projects are designed to verify that studied solutions can succeed on a large scale. These could include policy frameworks or new organizations committed to sustainability.

“By working together in these Solution Areas across disciplines and with collaborators beyond university walls,” said Scott Fendorf, senior associate dean for integrative initiatives at Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability. "We maximize our ability to have positive impacts on both timeframes and scales needed for humanity."

Workshops involving faculty and external experts will develop strategies for each Solution Area continuously. Future announcements will detail strategy workshops and requests for proposals open to all Stanford faculty.