Center for Science and Society awarded Mellon Foundation Grant

Since its launch in 2014, the Center for Science and Society has fostered academic exchange across disciplines at Columbia University, and has reached beyond Columbia’s walls to find partners for outreach programming that illuminates how science and society are co-constituted. The Mellon Foundation has been one of the Center’s main donors and has been instrumental in its success as a model of interdisciplinary research, collaboration, education, and advocacy at Columbia.

As the Center for Science and Society enters its second decade, the Mellon Foundation’s $600,000 grant will help the Center implement and expand the principles of community-driven co-production by:

• Launching two new grant programs in environmental humanities and community-based co-production of knowledge, open to Columbia University affiliates, university partners, and community groups.
• Fostering curriculum development and experiential learning through two new environmental justice minors for undergraduate students: (1) Climate Humanities and (2) Science and Society.
• Expanding our Network for Community-Driven Co-production, by bringing together academic researchers and community partners to foster collaboration on environmental justice research, teaching, and advocacy and promote the concept and process of co-production through public events. 

“This renewed support from the Mellon Foundation will help us infuse the principles and practices of co-production into all our activities, and to foster a wider understanding and adoption of its practice at Columbia and beyond,” says Pamela Smith, Seth Low Professor of History and the Center’s Founding Director.