In 2023, Senior Vice Provost for University Interdisciplinary Programs Rob Dunn launched the Long View Project with support from KIETS. The intervening years have demonstrated the value of the Long View Project, but also the challenges that are associated with launching a new interdisciplinary initiative. The future-focused work of the Long View Project is a critical and sought-after part of the campus conversation, but it needs an institutional infrastructure to strategically grow.
The December 2024 launch of the new Climate and Sustainability Academy (CSA) addresses this need. Building on the creative and engagement successes of the initial iteration of the Long View Project and taking full advantage of the new institutional infrastructure afforded by the new CSA, the Longer View Initiative, led by Professor Jory Weintraub, seeks to transition to a more focused and more concerted effort to cross-pollinate innovations across the campus community.
Rather than develop multiple future-focused scenarios and use a diffuse approach to distribute those scenarios widely to multiple audiences, the next iteration of this work would instead develop a single theme to be intentionally targeted and infused into aligned campus activities each year. Through the personnel and communications infrastructure of the CSA, the Longer View effort would assist with integration of that single theme to help guide and conceptually align futures-focused activities. With this iteration of the Longer View Project, science journalist JoAnna Klein will work with issue experts to develop a future-focused theme for intentional, university-wide dissemination and integration. The single theme will be developed in partnership with faculty, students, and staff, leveraging the networks and convening capacity of the new CSA. For 2025-26, the Longer View effort is exploring the possibility of developing a theme around the topic of urban heat solutions.
The creation of the CSA allows for a more sustainable path forward for the Longer View associated activities by intentionally seeking funding from individual donors who are sustainability-minded and student-focused. CSA leadership will work with University Advancement to secure funding to support a small core of creative work and a larger body of student-focused Longer View programming efforts. Another strategy will be to intentionally work across campus to align proposed activities with existing funding streams. A third strategy will be to aggressively seek foundation and government support, specifically for the ideas and activities envisioned. Though the federal grants landscape is evolving rapidly, there is continued interest in future-focused work, and suitable avenues will be identified for proposal development within the two-year project timeline.