Strengthening Arizona State University’s commitment to innovation, ASU and Beijing Normal University have agreed to establish the Joint International Research Laboratory of Disaster Risk and Sustainability Sciences. The mission of the Joint Lab is to establish an international innovation platform for fostering research, training and education programs in both disaster risk and sustainability sciences, with an emphasis on integrated risk governance for sustainable development.

The ultimate goals for the Joint Lab are to understand the transformation of social-ecological systems in the context of global climate change, to provide the knowledge required for societies elsewhere in the world to deal with risks posed by global environmental change, and to seize sustainable development opportunities in a transition to global sustainability.

The establishment of the Joint Lab will further consolidate the existing collaborations on disaster risk and sustainability sciences between BNU and ASU, and enable the two distinguished universities to share and implement programmatic ideas between faculty, staff and students. Within fields that are mutually acceptable, the Joint Lab will cooperate for the next five years on collaborative research, faculty and student education, and lab operation and administration.

ASU believes that with the mutual efforts from BNU and ASU, we will undoubtedly build up multifaceted, harmonious, fruitful, and sustainable research and training programs in both disaster risk and sustainability sciences.