Looking ahead to the next five years, the Institute at Brown for Environment and Society (IBES) has ambitious plans to expand and innovate — in our research, our rigorous interdisciplinary scholarship, our internal foundation for support, and the breadth of our partnerships — as outlined by our 2023-2028 Strategic Plan.

Mission

The mission of IBES is to advance solutions to critical challenges at the intersection of environment and society through solutions-engaged interdisciplinary research and education.

Vision

IBES harnesses interdisciplinary innovation and excellence in research at the nexus of environment and society to advance knowledge and solutions on local, regional, and global scales. Rigorous training ensures that IBES students possess the solutions-oriented knowledge, skills, networks, and creativity they need to create a more just and sustainable future.

Values

• We believe in IBES as an agent of transformative change in addressing the most complex challenges of our time.
• We actively promote the exchange and dissemination of evidence-based knowledge and information.
• We celebrate the unique and essential contributions of every member of our community, and recognize a diverse set of values, lived experiences, cultural identities, and political ideologies as assets to our work.
• We value risk-taking and adaptive learning where failure is recognized as a part of learning and growth for individuals, programs, and the institute.
• We recognize the role that structural, systemic, and implicit bias play in shaping the experiences of many in our community, and work to combat bias in its many forms.