Bridging Sustainability Solutions Worldwide
Vision
A world of healthy, resilient communities where people learn and work together and life flourishes in just and equitable environments.
Mission
Facilitate local communities and institutions in developing, sharing and scaling up sustainabilitity solutions--locally and globally--to eradicate root causes of poverty, environmental degradation and unhealthy living conditions.
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What We Do
The Global ARC brings together educators, researchers, scientists, professionals, students and community organizers to integrate and scale up actionable knowledge and sustainability solutions across urban-rural divides. We strive for a holistic understanding of civically-engaged action research concerning food, water, energy, land, economy, built environment, communications, human and social development. Our holisitc organizing framework—brought to life through community-based projects and scholarship of engagment--is place-based, globally-minded and solutions-oriented. Integrative concepts including watershed, foodshed, socio-ecological systems, knowledge exchange, environmental health and justice are central to what we do.
The Global ARC’s core functions include:
- A systematic way for community-based organizations to clarify and share their priorities for use-inspired, problem-solving, and solutions-oriented research.
- Collaborative infrastructure (internet and institutional) that incentivizes citizens, scientists, entrepreneurs and others to innovatively pool/share research-based evidence for public benefit.
- A holistic “connect the dots” approach to urban-rural sustainability that integrates otherwise fragmented efforts in the quest for justice, environmental health and good jobs.
- Leadership capacity-building for community engagement, research translation, science communication and social innovation.
Why call our organization an ARC?
First, it’s an acronym for Action Research Center. More importantly, ARC it is a metaphor for our urgent times, time to bring diversity together—people, plants animals. We face the real and loomnig threats of global modernity together. We need to find ways to equitably share mounting societal risks and burdens. We need to enable heallthy living that reduces our ecololgical footprint while increasing our collective social capacity for generosity, compassion and joyfulness. As a metaphor the ARC conveys a connective energy, as in the arc of a lightening bolt connecting cloud and ground, or a leap of creative imagination that connects the otherwise disconnected in inventive ways..
Who We Are
The Global ARC is led by a mix of educators, researchers, scientists, professionals and community organizers. We are dedicated to critical study, open dialog, social learning and shared problem solving through local place-based development. Our efforts to inspire, promote and enable localization and the creation of healthy rooted communities is conscious of the complex regional and global shifts taking place worldwide.
We join forces with one another through partnerships and knowledge networks with common cause to: (1) enrich comparative perspectives and global-mindedness in our work; (2) integrate critically constructive thinking-doing across academic and professional disciplines, and (3) advance university-based action research through education and practice that is civically-engaged, equitable, creative and mutually-beneficial.