IAI Professional Development Seminars to develop capacity building for global environmental change science and its policy application in the Americas

Inter-American Institute For Global Change Research, Montevideo

Investigators

Abstract

This award satisfies a U.S. Government contribution identified at the Twenty-first Meeting of the Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research, Conference of the Parties, whereby signatories of the Treaty Establishing the Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research (IAI) agreed to contributions towards a research budget supporting the activities of the IAI. Program Budget Support, for which this proposal is submitted, allows the Directorate of the IAI to provide support for a multidisciplinary, multinational research and capacity building program. The funds will be used to support five Professional Development Seminars (PDS) for global environmental challenges in the Americas. Seminars will explore: Transdisciplinary Scientific Team Management Skills; Managing Ecosystems Services from Tropical Forests; Ecohealth Approach for the Andean countries; Impacts of Global Change and Variability on Human Health in the MERCOSUR countries; and Building Resilience to Risk in Rural Areas. The intellectual merit of this proposal lies in the essential role of the IAI in developing research capacity in relation to the IAI's objectives to implement regional cooperation for interdisciplinary research on global environmental challenges; to conduct training of regional relevance which cannot be conducted by any single country or institution; to link research institutions of the region to global programs; to improve the scientific and technical capabilities and research infrastructure of the countries of the region; to foster standardization, collection, analysis and exchange of scientific data; and to provide scientific information to government towards public policy on global environmental challenges. The IAI has been listed by the State Department as an international organization within the meaning of the Federal Employees International Organization Service Act, covered by 5 U.S.C. 3343 and 5 U.S.C. 3581. Currently, the IAI Directorate is hosted by Uruguay on the campus of the Technological Laboratory of Uruguay in Montevideo where the IAI Directorate functions as an internationally recognized juridical personality, with the corresponding privileges and immunities granted by the Government of Uruguay.