The mission of the Environmental Resilience Institute is to increase resilience to environmental change in Indiana and the Midwest by accurately predicting impacts and effectively partnering with communities to implement feasible, equitable, and research-informed solutions.
With necessary and accurate information from the scientific community, including ERI, about the inequitably experienced risks and adverse impacts of climate change, communities in Indiana and the Midwest will equitably reduce risks and respond to and recover from those impacts. Our vision is that all residents, especially those most vulnerable, can thrive in safe, healthy, and economically vital communities.
While the threat of environmental change has concerning implications for all forms of life on this planet, we recognize that environmental justice is especially linked to systemic racism. Therefore, we are committed to fighting for environmental justice and against systemic racism in all our work. ERI is deliberately cultivating a staff and culture rich in diversity of thought, background, race, gender, ability, and lived experiences.
Indiana University’s campuses are built on ancestral Indigenous homelands and resources of various tribes. We would like to acknowledge and honor the myaamiaki, Lënape, Bodwéwadmik, and saawanwa people as past, present, and future caretakers of the lands that are the current home of the Environmental Resilience Institute.
We encourage everyone to engage with contemporary Indigenous communities, to learn the histories of this land, to look at who has and does not have access to its resources, and to examine your own place, abilities, and obligations within this process of reparative work that is necessary to promote a more equitable and socially just Indiana University. You can learn more about the native communities on whose ancestral lands we live from the direct link to the communities’ websites shared by the First Nations Educational & Cultural Center. Please take the time to review these tribal websites, learn about these Native communities, and look for ways that you can help contribute to the work that is being done.
