What We Do

The Bioregional Center for Sustainability Science, Planning and Design builds university-community partnerships, knowledge, leadership capacity, networks and livelihood opportunities needed for making "Healthy Places, Healthy People, Healthy Communities."

Three overarching objectives motivate our efforts:

1. enable the sustainability transition,
2. democratize science and technologies of human settlement, and
3. enhance communication systems for public reasoning in sustainability planning, policy and design.

• We address some of the 21st century's most complicated, interlocking challenges including: food-energy-water security; climate change; and health disparities.
• We generate theories of change, plans, policies and designs to make human settlements more adaptive and resilient while eradicating root causes of ecological degradation, poverty, social strife and injustice.
• We co-design and do civically engaged research with residents and organizations of disadvantaged neighborhoods and communities.
• We improve how human and natural systems interact in our buildings, infrastructure, landscapes and designs for healthy and active living.
• We advance a bioregional approach that highlights urban-rural-hinterland interdependencies and the importance of a healthy sense of place linking land and people.
• We create multisector, interdisciplinary, place-based knowledge-action collaboratives that join planning, health and science.
• We share knowledge and tools for sustainablity science, planning and design through diverse academic, public, and social multimedia venues.
• We inspire and enable "rooted community development," the "bioregional transition" and the rise of the "Rooted University"