Core Support of the U.S. Hub of the Future Earth Secretariat

University Of Colorado At Boulder, Boulder CO

Investigators

Abstract

This award provides support for the US Hub of the Future Earth Secretariat. The Director of the hub and associated staff have the primary responsibility for the operation of the U.S. hub and will be responsible for building networks of researchers and stakeholders in the U.S. to engage with Future Earth. The hub director will serve as part of a six person international executive team that will have oversight over the operations of the international Future Earth organization. Future Earth is the most ambitious and far-reaching program in global environmental change ever envisioned. The Future Earth program is governed by an international alliance of funders, national agencies and prominent scientists and stakeholders. It is strongly supported by major U.S. agencies, under the interdisciplinary auspices of the U.S. Global Change Research Program. In May 2014, a global consortium representing the nations of Canada, France, Japan, Sweden and the United States was selected as the preferred bidder to host the new Future Earth Secretariat. This globally distributed approach to governance of the Future Earth program is an ambitious and unique approach that has never been tried before in International science coordination but which is common in other globally distributed corporate structures. Through this new approach, each nation will host a Global Hub and will work in a coordinated way to advance the Future Earth Programme. The U.S. Global Hub will be hosted in Colorado at the University of Colorado Boulder and Colorado State University. Although headquartered in the Front Range of Colorado, the Global Hub will be closely tied to affiliate organizations across the nation. The funding provided in this grant will be used to support the work of the Hub Director and the US Hub team, which will provide support for a range of activities to implement the emerging agenda of Future Earth but will initially lead the or co-lead the development of research enabling and global capacity building. The leadership of these two functions reflect the US strength in both GEC research and international development.