Our programs
Anticipating global challenges and designing potential futures
With its headquarters on the ASU Tempe campus and facilities based across the U.S. as well as in the Pacific and Atlantic Ocean regions, the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory® comprises more than 70 units, centers, programs and initiatives each dedicated to supporting our efforts to best diagnose and anticipate global challenges and help design potential futures where all of Earth’s inhabitants may thrive.
Institutes
ASU Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences
The Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences is one of the longest-serving research institutes dedicated to studying ocean processes. ASU BIOS works in partnership with the School of Ocean Futures and numerous global partners to support research programs across the different branches of oceanography—biological, chemical, physical and geological—as well as work across the related disciplines of environmental science, resource monitoring and conservation and risk prediction.
Global Institute of Sustainability and Innovation
The Global Institute of Sustainability and Innovation is the research and discovery hub of Arizona State University’s sustainability, complexity, marine and responsible innovation initiatives. The institute advances research and business practices for an urbanizing world. Its mission is to articulate and exemplify Arizona State University’s university-wide commitment to thriving global futures and connect scientists, scholars, humanists, engineers, technologists, policymakers, business leaders, students and communities to enhance the capacity to address challenges that impact humanity’s ability to thrive.
The Water Institute
Drawing from existing academic capacity across ASU, the Water Institute at Arizona State University is a new international center of excellence for scholarship and action designed to predict and address water challenges from community to national scale. The Water Institute is developing educational, research and communication projects that benefit communities across the region, the nation and the globe.
Research programs
Arizona Water Innovation Initiative
The Arizona Water Innovation Initiative is a statewide project that works with industrial, municipal, agricultural, tribal and international partners to rapidly accelerate and deploy new approaches and technology for water conservation, augmentation, desalination, efficiency, infrastructure and reuse.
Electrified Processes for Industry without Carbon
The Department of Energy’s seventh Clean Energy Manufacturing Innovation Institute, Electrified Processes for Industry without Carbon is a public-private partnership aimed at securing U.S. manufacturing competitiveness in a global economic environment that increasingly demands eliminating carbon emissions by developing the technologies and workforce required to replace fossil fuel-based heating with electric heating.
National Science Foundation Engines: Southwest Sustainability Innovation Engine
The Southwest Sustainability Innovation Engine — based at ASU and spanning 54 partnerships across Arizona, Nevada and Utah — is one the first NSF Innovation Engines to accelerate the development of jobs, technologies, policies and solutions by way of green economy and innovation.
Education
The College of Global Futures
Dedicated to creating a sustainable, equitable and vibrant future for everyone, our four schools and expert faculty are focused on empowering our students and lifelong learners to make smart decisions about the future. Through the lenses of sustainability, ethical innovation, complexity and our oceans, the College of Global Futures prepares learners with the needed skills, tools, perspectives and abilities to meet the global challenges of today and tomorrow.
School of Sustainability
The School of Sustainability is the first comprehensive degree-granting program of its kind in the United States, with a focus on finding real-world solutions to environmental, economic and social challenges. Established in 2006, the School is part of the College of Global Futures. The School of Sustainability offers undergraduate and graduate programs and minors, as well as doctoral and professional leadership programs.
School for the Future of Innovation in Society
The School for the Future of Innovation in Society is a transdisciplinary unit at the vanguard of ASU’s commitment to linking innovation to public value. SFIS is pursuing a vision of responsible innovation that anticipates challenges and opportunities, integrates diverse knowledge and perspectives, and engages broad audiences. By examining the ways we translate imagination into innovation — and how we blend technical and social concerns along the way — we learn to build a future for everyone.
School of Complex Adaptive Systems
The School of Complex Adaptive Systems was established as a foundational institution within the College of Global Futures, ASU’s center of experiential learning, engaged research, and real-world problem-solving dedicated to the present and future well-being of our planet.
School of Ocean Futures
The School of Ocean Futures is ASU’s newest academic home for studying and teaching about the current and future states of the ocean, and it addresses the challenges our oceans experience due to increasing pressure from human activities. It combines research and teaching facilities in the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans with the cutting-edge research facilities within the Walton Center for Planetary Health.
Centers
Center for Negative Carbon Emissions
The Center for Negative Carbon Emissions is advancing carbon management technologies that can capture carbon dioxide (CO2) directly from ambient air in an outdoor operating environment. This includes the technological solutions development designed by carbon capture pioneer Klaus Lackner with the MechanicalTree(r) being produced and tested in partnership with Carbon Collect LLC.
Center for Global Discovery and Conservation Science
The Center for Global Discovery and Conservation Science leads spatially-explicit scientific and technological research focused on mitigating and adapting to global environmental change. The research unit has 10 labs within Arizona and Hawaii to further discovery, conservation and action with particular focus on the health and rehabilitation of the planet’s coral reefs, mapping greenhouse gas emissions and working with local communities and cultures to protect and integrate long-standing knowledge and approaches to environmental and societal wellness.
Decision Theater
The Decision Theater organizes researchers, policymakers and the business community to better understand and explore solutions to complex issues facing society. In addition to permanent facilities in Arizona and Washington, D.C., Decision Theater is able to mobilize its experts and technology to meet partners where they are at and even assist and guide partners to create their own Decision Theater hub.
Swette Center for Sustainable Food Systems
The Swette Center for Sustainable Food Systems develops innovative ideas and solutions to the many challenges of current food systems. Taking a holistic and transdisciplinary approach, the Center’s work encompasses water and energy use, carbon footprint and nutrition, innovations in agtech, and the well-being and livelihood of farmers and others working in food systems.
LightWorks®
LightWorks® pulls light-inspired energy research at Arizona State University under one strategic framework. It is a multidisciplinary effort to leverage ASU’s unique strengths, particularly in solar-electric energy, sustainable fuels and products, and energy and society.
Walton Sustainability Solutions Service
In 2012, Rob and Melani Walton, through the Walton Family Foundation, invested in Arizona State University to initiate programs that will develop use-inspired knowledge to solve sustainability problems, educate leaders and implementers, and engage people globally to innovate and take risks to create a more sustainable world. Today, the Solutions Service continues this endeavor through innovative approaches to circular economies, waste, municipal engagement and sustainable economies.
Heat ReadyTM
The HeatReady™ Program project was born out of the desire to protect those most vulnerable to extreme heat. It emphasizes preparedness through detailed tracking and impactful response to protect human health from the dangers of heat at three essential connection points: cities, communities and schools.
Center for Biodiversity Outcomes
The Center for Biodiversity Outcomes brings together individuals and groups — from academic, nonprofit, policy and corporate sectors — to achieve common goals of biodiversity conservation and sustainable management of natural resources in the 21st century.
Consortium for Science, Policy and Outcomes
The Consortium for Science, Policy & Outcomes is an intellectual network aimed at enhancing the contribution of science and technology to society’s pursuit of equality, justice, freedom, and overall quality of life. CSPO creates knowledge and methods, cultivates public discourse, and fosters policies to help decision makers and institutions grapple with the immense power of science and technology as society charts a course for the future.
Additional programs:
- ASU-SFI Center for Biosocial Complex Systems
- ASU-Starbucks Center for the Future of People and the Planet
- The Biomimicry Center
- Central Arizona-Phoenix Long Term Ecological Research Program
- Center for Behavior, Institutions and the Environment
- Center for Innovation in Informal STEM Learning
- Center for Innovation and Development in Society
- Center for Science and the Imagination
- Center for Smart Cities and Regions
- Center for Social Dynamics and Complexity
Secretariats
Earth Biogenome Project
A “moonshot” for biology, the Earth Biogenome Project aims to sequence, catalog and characterize the genomes of all of Earth’s eukaryotic biodiversity over a period of ten years. Through a global network of communities, it is possible to efficiently sequence the genomes of all known species, and to use genomics to help discover the remaining 80 to 90 percent of species that are currently hidden from science.
The Earth League
An international alliance of institutional and individual members who work together to respond to some of the most pressing issues faced by humankind including climate change, depletion of natural resources, land degradation, water scarcity, or food security. The work of the alliance is guided by the principles of sustainable development. Each year, the Earth League partners with FutureEarth and the World Climate Research Programme to publish the 10 New Insights in Climate Science.
The Sustainability Consortium
A global organization made up of manufacturers, retailers, suppliers, service providers, NGOs, civil society organizations, governmental agencies and academics, the Sustainability Consortium works to enable a world where people can lead fulfilled lives in a way that decouples their impacts on people and the planet.
New Carbon Economy Consortium
The New Carbon Economy Consortium, an alliance of universities, national labs, and NGOs working in partnership with industry leaders to build a carbon-conscious world, evolved from the premise that rapid development, assessment and deployment of carbon capture technologies and practices requires a new way to work together. Through a robust network, this consortium builds the intellectual basis for engineered, biological and social solutions, and – most importantly – their implications for society.
Programs and partnerships
BRIDGES Flagship Hub
The BRIDGES Flagship Hub at ASU advocates and creates space for the meaningful engagement of traditionally marginalized voices and perspectives by supporting, co-designing and co-facilitating humanities-led programs and initiatives embedded across disciplinary, cultural, and experiential knowledge.
WE Empower
Launched in 2018 by the UN Secretary General, President of the World Bank and the Council of Women World Leaders at the UN General Assembly, this first-of-its-kind global competition for women social entrepreneurs who advance the UN SDGs and inspire entire communities to create the world we want by 2030. This program elevates and showcases the valuable contribution women social entrepreneurs and business leaders make toward solving the world’s greatest challenges.
ASU Leonardo
As an enterprising think tank and knowledge enterprise at ASU, Leonardo integrates hybrid, creative inquiry and practice as catalysts to solve compelling problems, explore timeless mysteries, and shape a finer future.
Futurecast
Global Futures: Futurecast offers a look into our prospective futures through the eyes of the extensive Global Futures Scientists and Scholars Network. Explore what might come in the seconds, days, and years ahead by subscribing.
Our latest issue talks about how we can draw inspiration from the patterns in nature to implement strategic decisions in our built world.