About Us
Understanding the complex, long-term changes in our land, air, and water requires breakthroughs in measurement, modeling, and prediction.
Responding to these changes requires innovative policies that comprehend agriculture, energy needs, trade and finance — along with the political and communications savvy to organize a genuinely global approach.
The Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change is MIT's response to these research, analysis, and public education challenges.
The Program integrates multidisciplinary expertise from the Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research and the Center for Global Change Science and collaborates with other major research groups within and outside MIT. In particular, the Marine Biological Laboratory's Ecosystems Center has been a key partner for over a decade.
Our cornerstone is the MIT Integrated Global System Model (IGSM) of economic and environmental change. The IGSM is a comprehensive mathematical tool for analyzing global climate change and its social, economic, and environmental consequences.
The Joint Program leads in both science and policy, providing expertise to Congress, foreign governments, and to scientific agencies via briefings, workshops, publications and testimony. We also communicate directly with national and international policy-making bodies, and with other researchers, through the MIT Global Change Forum.