The Alliance Summer School began as a student-led initiative in 2012 in an effort to promote interdisciplinary exchanges between doctoral and high-level masters students at Alliance institutions researching the nexus of science and policy. The Summer School brings together world-class professors, industry experts, policy makers and PhD students for a week-long event that fosters an exchange of ideas, intellectual discourse, and joint-learning opportunities through a mixture of guest speakers and workshops.
The focus of this year's event is on complex interactions within and across natural, social and political systems. The aim is to better understand these interactions and learn how to incorporate or consider them in research and policymaking. Examples will be drawn from various topics, including public health (e.g. air pollution, infectious diseases) and natural resources management (e.g. fisheries).
The organizing team is currently in the process of contacting potential speakers for 2016. Notable speakers from past Summer Schools include Eric Maskin, Nobel Laureate and Professor of Economics at Harvard; Jeffrey Sachs, Professor of Sustainable Development and Director of The Earth Institute at Columbia University; Laurence Tubiana, Special Representative of the French Minister of Foreign Affairs and President, French Development Agency (AFD) Board of Governors, and Bob Watson, former IPCC Chair and current Director of the International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development at the University of East Anglia.
