What drives YPS?

What Drives YPS?

Yale Planetary Solutions (YPS), a multidisciplinary university priority, seeks to advance planetary solutions by engaging every resource that Yale has to offer, from its students, faculty, staff, and alumni, to teaching, learning, researching, building, operating, convening, investing, and leading, to chart an abundant future. Our work advances and integrates scholarship, research, education, operations, and infrastructure and draws on breakthroughs in science and engineering; the insights of the arts, humanities, and social sciences; and the policies of business, government, and law to drive innovation under one unified banner here in New Haven and around the world.

Recognizing the vastness and complexity of climate and environmental challenges, YPS supports, connects, and drives research across the institution. Inspired by the recommendations of the University Science Strategy Committee, YPS seeks to leverage Yale’s scientific research excellence and common interests between all schools and departments to yield breakthroughs across disciplines. By harnessing the university’s capacity to mobilize and focus collective resources, we can devise solutions to the greatest planetary challenges of our time. The breadth of Yale’s endeavors provides innumerable opportunities for individual impact; however, achieving the greatest progress will require all aspects of the university to be meaningfully and collaboratively engaged. Notably, the challenge we are undertaking is not to “understand planetary problems.” We instead intend to transform understanding into impact and action from every dimension of our university community.

YPS is a manifestation of the university’s pursuit of Lux et Veritas, Yale’s motto. Truth seeks to understand the world as it is, as it was, and as it could be in all its infinite complexity. Light serves as a beacon to call people to common cause, warn them in times of danger, and help them steer clear of harm. We believe we can accelerate the pace of progress and respond to the global threat of climate change and its effects through our efforts, bringing these ideals to bear.