Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment

**Our Mission: To advance global sustainability through new knowledge and practical, fair solutions to pressing environmental challenges.** The Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment is working toward a future in which societies meet people’s needs for water, food, health and other vital services while sustaining the planet. Part of the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability, Woods serves as the university's hub for interdisciplinary research about the environment. We bring together Stanford faculty, researchers and students from all seven schools, fostering research collaborations that can tackle challenges too complex for any one discipline to solve alone. Sustainability is, at its core, about people and planet. In the Woods Institute, this means co-developing solutions, working with diverse collaborators, embracing a wide range of theories of change, and prioritizing equitable outcomes. We strive to create an environment that encourages, nurtures, and celebrates academic collaborations as well as cross-sector engagement. Partnerships with the private sector, governments at all levels, and diverse faces of civil society are essential for understanding key issues, opportunities, constraints, allies, and competitors. Partnerships also are essential for developing, deploying, and scaling real-world solutions. More broadly, success depends on engaging the widest possible range of those who may be affected, from customers to communities negatively impacted by solutions. The Woods Institute leverages the convening power of Stanford to foster this kind of far-reaching engagement, connecting Stanford's experts to their counterparts in government, business, NGOs, foundations and other academic institutions. We see environmental issues embedded in a complex world, with every issue connected to many others through diverse Earth-system and human processes. **Our Vision and Values**: Unique opportunities come from combining cutting-edge scholarship, diverse partnerships and deep engagement across sectors and disciplines. We value collaborative approaches, systems thinking, intellectual boldness and a commitment to just outcomes.