Opportunity for Environmental Leaders of the Developing World to Examine Land-Use Science
The Watson Scholars program brings environmental leaders from university faculties, governments, and nongovernmental organizations throughout the developing world to Brown University for advanced training in land-change sciences and policies, providing them with tools to enhance the sustainable development capacity in their countries. The opportunity offers an intensive program in sustainable land-use science to provide mastery of critical concepts, relevant tools, and transferable processes necessary for successfully managing land and ecosystems.
Supported by a $550,000 grant from the Henry Luce Foundation, the program offers Scholars time away from their daily responsibilities to learn new skills with a community of scholars applying both theoretical and practice approaches to real world environmental issues.
Full time for three and a half months, participants are involved in courses, workshops, field trips, symposia, mentorship, professional networking, and research projects. The Watson International Scholars of the Environment are active participants, not passive students. Instruction focuses upon relevant case studies of land-use patterns, and successful and unsuccessful approaches to maintaining delivery of ecosystem goods and services from throughout the world.
The opportunity for participants entails increased levels of effectiveness, informing sound decision-making by enhancing abilities to rapidly integrate data from across disciplines. Investment in these leaders is strategic: participants are men and women capable of creating lasting and immediately favorable impacts on the sustainable development of their home institutions, eco-regions, and nations. Accordingly, participants are expected to be at a mid-point within their careers in environmental science, policy, and technology fields. The program seeks individuals who want to forge new linkages among ideas and issues, to develop networks among leaders facing similar land-use issues, and to explore alliances with relevant colleagues and institutions for improved personal and institutional effectiveness in meeting the needs of humanity.
An additional component of the program is the Luce Environmental Fellows program. The fellows are Brown undergraduate and graduate students who work with Watson Scholars and University faculty on multidisciplinary environmental research and policy initiatives.
Brown`s high-quality facilities are fully available to the Watson Scholars, including a 3-million-volume library, comfortable offices, and computing in the Watson Institute for International Studies, and state-of-the- art environmental laboratories and classrooms. This strategically designed curriculum and its eminent institutional setting provide the Watson International Scholars of the Environment with essential tools for enhancing sustainable development capacity in their countries.
At the completion of the program, each graduate receives certification from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP); Brown is one of only three institutions worldwide approved by UNEP to offer such postgraduate semesters.
Forging Bold New Collaborations
Effective collaboration is key to the program`s success. Major grants from the Henry Luce Foundation from 2001-2009 have enabled design implementation and refinement of the curriculum and its network-building. The Foundation supports Brown University undergraduates, graduate students, and faculty in pursuing important environmental management initiatives in collaboration with the Watson Scholars and their developing nations.
In addition to the Watson Institute, relevant centers on campus include the departments of Sociology, History, Geological Sciences, and Ecology and Evolutionary Biology; the Center for Environmental Studies; the Population Studies Training Program; and the International Health Institute. Finally, the program has expanded its liaison with key environmental organizations throughout the world. Chief among these is its collaboration with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), which provides UN certification for each participant successfully completing the curriculum. To date, 34 countries are represented in the graduates of the program (2001-2004): Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, China, Colombia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Dominican Republic, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Egypt, Gambia, Ghana, India, Iran, Jamaica, Kenya, Mali, Mexico, Mongolia, Nepal, Niger, Pakistan, Peru, Philippines, Senegal, Samoa, South Africa, Tajikistan, Tunisia, Uganda, Venezuela, Vietnam, Zambia, and
Zimbabwe.
Critical Context for Focused Capacity-Building
The program shares a basic premise with its collaborators. For sustainable development to prevail, rapid and significant gains must be achieved in sustainable land-use management capacity. Such efforts must outpace the extraordinary declines underway in ecological integrity including losses in biodiversity, productivity, ecosystem functioning, and the sustainability of air, water, and soil. Strengthening environmental capacity is most critical in developing nations, where consequences are severest; population growth is highest; and biological diversity greatest, yet most imperiled. Clearly, land-change science and policy leaders in developing nations play pivotal roles.
The Watson International Scholars of the Environment have access to a highly integrative curriculum, relevant and transferable tools, and expert networks engaged in environmental capacity-building.
Website: http://www.watsonin stitute.org
Application deadline: 15 October 2006
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