Signature Initiatives

Center on Sustainability and Governance in the Anthropocene (C-SAGA)

Summer School on Sustainability and Governance in the Anthropocene

August 20-23, 2024

Current emissions of greenhouse gases, alteration of critical ecosystems, and a host of other anthropogenic drivers present significant and cascading crises, threatening the prospects for sustainable development. Finding solutions to the unprecedented rate and magnitude of these social and environmental changes will require integrated and human-centered governance approaches at multiple scales, ranging from individuals and households to global multilateral bodies. Yet current policies tend to focus on single problems and at a single scale, while also failing to learn from insights grounded in social science. New approaches to governance and institutional architectures that are capable of addressing the multi-scale, urgent, and dynamic complexity of the Anthropocene are needed, requiring innovations across knowledge systems, attention to coproduction of solutions with multiple stakeholders who are empowered to act, and advances in understanding desirable visions of the future and how to achieve them.

With support from the National Science Foundation, the Department of Human Ecology at Rutgers University-New Brunswick will be running an inaugural summer school for early career Ph.D. students working on governance and sustainability. The goal of the Summer School is to increase the capacity of early-stage researchers to learn more about this field and the need for interdisciplinary scholarship and collaboration. During the workshop, we will bring together scholars from a range of disciplines in a small group setting to learn, exchange ideas, and build partnerships. Training on essential skills will be offered on topics suited to the applicants, and may include working in collaborative governance, science communication, social science methods, and grant and publication guidance. Interactions with faculty from across Rutgers working in the sustainability governance field will provide opportunities for career advice, mentorship, and networking. At the end of the workshop, the relationships built with other students will provide mutual support for the future.

Application Deadline: May 15, 2024

Learn More & Apply

Professors Pamela McElwee and Rachael Shwom (Department of Human Ecology) were awarded a National Science Foundation CRISES planning grant for a Center on Sustainability and Governance in the Anthropocene (C-SAGA).

C-SAGA explores the policy innovations needed to address the interdependence of ecological and socio-economic systems; spatially and temporally distant and diffuse environmental impacts; novel conditions of deep uncertainty about many emerging problems; and the potential for irreversible tipping points, cascades, and feedbacks in the earth system.

“We are facing an interdependent and interconnected world in which environmental problems are far more complex than ever before. Scientists need to move beyond describing these complexities and engage in helping to design solutions that are both nimble and inclusive”
Dr. McElwee

C-SAGA has three central case studies under development by working groups where Rutgers has notable research strengths:

1. Fisheries and Marine Governance in the Face of Rapid Environmental Change

2. Safeguarding Island Food Systems Under a Changing Climate

3. Equity-driven Nature-based Solutions to Biodiversity Loss

Fisheries and Marine Governance in the Face of Rapid Environmental Change

Safeguarding Island Food Systems Under a Changing Climate

Equity-driven Nature-based Solutions to Biodiversity Loss

C-SAGA Public Symposium

RCEI teamed with the C-SAGA principal investigators to host a public symposium, “Sustainability Governance in the Anthropocene,” on May 7, 2024. Our plenary speakers included Dr. Jennifer Clapp, Dr. Ratana Chuenpagdee; and Dr. Meredith Gore.   You can watch their presentations at the symposium here. Following the public symposium, the working group teams met for a two-day workshop to further develop the full grant.  

C-SAGA Summer School

McElwee and Shwom also led the first ever Summer School in Sustainability Governance in partnership with RCEI. Twenty-nine early-stage researchers from 20 institutions across the US, Canada, Brazil, the Netherlands, and the UK convened at Rutgers in August 2024 to learn about governance issues, strengthen research capacities across a range of skills, and build a cohort of like-minded scholars.

Summer School in Sustainability Governance students at Rutgers, August 2024

“I know I speak for everyone when I say the discussions, insightful guest speakers, and opportunities for relationship-building were truly invaluable.”
A student in the 2024 Summer School in Sustainability Governance

Other RCEI affiliated faculty involved in C-SAGA includes Julie Lockwood (Ecology, Evolution and Natural Resources), Robert Kopp (Earth and Planetary Sciences), Marjorie Kaplan (Rutgers Climate and Energy Institute), Victoria Ramenzoni, Cara Cuite, Karen O’Neill, and Cymie Payne (all from the Department of Human Ecology), Danielle Falzon (Sociology), and Kevon Rhiney, Kevin St. Martin and Jesse Rodenbiker (all from Geography) and Andrea Restrepo-Mieth (Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy).

If you are an undergraduate or graduate student, postdoc, or faculty interested in sustainability governance and participating in the planning process please contact Rachael Shwom at shwomrac@sebs.rutgers.edu or Pamela McElwee at pm473@sebs.rutgers.edu.