Each student participates in a set of core training activities that includes classes, an internship experience, seminars, an annual retreat, and other special events.  

This training program builds on existing disciplinary graduate programs at the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) in ecology, biology and wildlife, natural resources management, economics, political science, geology, geophysics, engineering, anthropology, and other degree granting programs.

Our students work with many of UAF’s active research centers and programs such as the International Arctic Research Center, the Institute of Arctic Biology, the Center for Alaska Native Health  Research, the Alaska Native Language Center, the Scenarios Network for Alaska Planning, Cold Regions Housing Research Center, and the Alaska Center for Climate Assessment and Policy.  Researchers at these centers are engaged in interdisciplinary studies that relate directly to the focus of RAP.    

Students also work with collaborators from other universities who are exploring ecological economics, climate dynamics, global change, conservation management, and cultural resilience. These collaborators come from the Stockholm Resilience Centre of Sweden, the Arctic Centre of Lapland the Institute of Social and Economic Research at the University of Alaska Anchorage, the Universities of Massachusetts, and Manitoba, and others. Students researchers actively involve members of indigenous communities,non-government organizations and resource managers of state and federal agencies.

Communication across disciplines and with local communities, managers, and policy makers requires a sensitivity to, and respect for, different worldviews. Disciplines must be integrated to the problems of sustainability to arrive at robust solutions.

Philosophy plays a role in sustainability science because the application of scientific understanding to sustainability raises important ethical questions related to the expectations of "objective science" in solving ecological and social problems.  Philosophical and ethical questions related to research, and problems in the integration of differing perspectives are explored as a part of our Resilience Seminar.

Email:  uaf-rap@alaska.edu      Phone:  907-474-7029          PO Box 757000, Fairbanks, AK  99775-7000