Our Vision
Through world-leading research, global partnerships, and policy engagement, the Center for Global Sustainability at the University of Maryland changes the way governments and people envision and implement possibilities for ambitious climate action. In a world with rapidly changing politics, technology, and knowledge about new opportunities, we develop and apply diverse quantitative, computational, and qualitative research methodologies to illuminate pathways to success in realizing a higher-ambition trajectory toward our shared climate, energy, and sustainability goals.
CGS supports a team of approximately 75 people, and we work through ongoing and sustained research partnerships with research organizations in 17 countries. Our research clusters focus work on key countries and topics relevant to current policy challenges, including ambitious national and state climate strategies in major economies, fossil phase-out, energy technology, benefits of climate and energy transitions, and others. These include large, geographically focused programs for the United States, China, India, Indonesia, Brazil, and Maryland; work on approximately 10 other major economies; and programs on cross-cutting thematic areas on non-CO2 greenhouse gases, science and scenarios, and subnational action. We also support building future research and policy leaders through our mentoring and education for students at the undergraduate, master’s, and Ph.D. levels at the University of Maryland.