We believe that achieving this integration is the most fundamental challenge that must be met for societies to more effectively manage, and live with, global environmental change. The project has focused on assessment experience in global climate change, ozone depletion, transboundary air pollution, and biosafety with special attention to North America, Europe and India. We are expanding our work to encompass other issue areas and regions, with special attention to developing countries. Recruitment takes place through an international competition open to natural and social scientists as well as professional school students. A unique aspect of the GEA Project is its commitment to bringing together a critical mass of young scholars from different disciplines and nationalities in order that they can learn from and collaborate with one another at a formative stage in their careers.
Fellows spend the year as full collaborators with faculty in the activities described below.
A network of alumni fellows is maintained by the project to encourage continuing collaboration. In the fall term, the fellows work through a formal interdisciplinary syllabus of readings germane to the challenge of global environmental assessment that has been developed by the project. Guest lectures throughout the year on current scholarship in relevant science and policy supplement this training, as do seminars in which practicing scientists reflect on their experiences with international assessments. During the winter, the fellows conduct field research on assessment related-topics at institutions involved in assessment activities . In the spring, the fellows reassemble at Harvard to discuss and write up their research results.