Every five years, SFS Centers develop research plans to help identify and investigate critical environmental problems in the regions in which we operate. We provide information to assist local, regional and national agencies in decision-making about environmental management strategies.
The Five Year Research Plan (5YRP) is established by SFS staff in collaboration with local community leaders, representatives from government, research and academic institutions, non-profits, local land owners, and other stakeholders.
The 5YRP is the backbone of our operations in the field, providing a roadmap for the direction of student coursework and research projects, and how such courses and research fit into the bigger picture of natural resource management.
The Plan presents an overarching research question, summarizing a clearly defined research agenda and timeline of activities for the next five years. It identifies several areas of research, each with their own set of prioritized projects to address critical local environmental problems. The core courses of the SFS program give the students an interdisciplinary and holistic understanding of the background, context, and relevance of local environmental issues, analyzed through the lenses of ecology, natural resource management, policy, and socio-economics.
SFS students choose which of the ongoing, faculty-led field research projects, identified by the 5YRP, they would like to pursue at SFS. Each student develops a research question, collects and analyzes field data, writes up their results in a scientific paper, and presents to the local community and other stakeholders. This enables students to help the SFS Center and local community to achieve their long-term research objectives.
Five Year Research Plan Executive Summaries 2008 - 2012 (PDF)