The Bioregional Center
The UC San Diego Bioregional Center for Sustainability Science, Planning and Design brings diverse people and organizations together to collaboratively study and equitably improve how neighborhoods, cities, and regions function. The Bioregional Center provides a transdisciplinary workspace and knowledge networking hub for theory-building, civically engaged research, innovation, pedagogy and communication.
Mission
The Bioregional Center, established in 2016, focuses on solution-oriented research to facilitate experiential learning and put research into action. We inspire and support civically engaged research, education and multidirectional learning to make our cities, towns and bioregions healthy, just, democratic, and ecologically regenerative.
Impact Statement
We are amid a climate and environmental crisis that challenges not only the habitability of our planet for generations to come but also the health and survivability of people, culture, and ecosystems at this very moment. At the Bioregional Center, we want to address the historical and modern structures, cultural frames, paradigms, and conditions that have created our climate emergency, including gross inequity across society, severe biodiversity loss, environmental injustices, health harms, and threats to our collective and individual well-being.
To address this, we work on co-creating plans, policies, and theories of change to make human environments more adaptive and resilient. We use frameworks like the bioregional imagination, the rooted university, and the mobilization of the people to enact a perspective on our hope for a bioregional transition. We see it imperative to consider all facets of human identities in the context of social justice, including but not limited to race, class, gender identity, sexual orientation, and ability. Historically, this institution has self-alienated and harmed bodies to uphold its merit. If we do not work so that the deaths of those wronged before us would be safe now, then the work is not being done. Redemption to us means that we uplift and support the initiatives and aspirations of the communities in this bioregion with the strengths of our academic framework.
Guiding Principles
Learn more about the guiding principles that inspire the work and research conducted at the Bioregional Center.