 The STEPS Institute was established as a campus-wide effort to facilitate interdisciplinary environmental research across the university’s Division of Physical and Biological Sciences, Division of Social Sciences, and Baskin School of Engineering.
The increased pace and magnitude of human activities over the past century have created rapid environmental changes worldwide. These changes are interconnected, and they are rapidly altering all ecosystems on earth. Our societies have produced, in effect, intertwined global experiments whose long-term effects are unknown. The STEPS Institute fosters research and policy that explore these potential effects. Our efforts have coalesced into two initiatives: Genes-to-Ecoregions, and Regional Climate Change and Water. Through these initiatives, we are forging new collaborations among faculty researchers, policy makers, and environmental managers. STEPS is also assisting in the development of new multi-user environmental research facilities at UCSC.
 The Institute provides fellowships for interdisciplinary graduate research, and research grants to faculty, graduate students, and undergraduate students. Most of the funds are for research projects that either link multiple research laboratories at UCSC or link UCSC laboratories with outside agencies or policy makers. The Institute also works to increase dialogue among environmental researchers along California’s Central Coast through a vari ety of seminars and workshops. These efforts are leading to broader collaborations between UCSC researchers and other researchers withinCalifornia. These activities have been made possible through generous contributions from donors, and through funds from UCSC. We hope in coming years to explore an even wider range of interdisciplinary collaborations within the Institute’s two major initiatives.
|
