Our Mission

CNRS - ENS/PSL University - University of Arizona


The IRL Iglobes -- Interdisciplinary and Global Environmental Studies -- is an international and interdisciplinary research laboratory founded in 2008 by an agreement between the University of Arizona (UA) and the French National laboratory for Scientific Research (CNRS-INSHS/INEE). In 2018, the agreement was extended to include the Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris, as a third partner. Iglobes is hosted by the UA Biosphere 2 department and located on the UA main campus in Tucson.

Vision

Iglobes is designed to strenghten international cooperation between French and US researchers, in social and natural sciences. The center plays an active role in welcoming students, doctoral students and researchers committed to environmental issues and interested in the development of research on and in western North America

Mission

Iglobes' mission is therefore to support research and training on major environmental issues by hosting French scientists “in residence” for long-term collaborative projects with UA researchers, as well as short-term visiting scholars and students. Iglobes acts to facilitate and expand collaborations that have long been established between the French scientific community and multiple departments and centers at the University of Arizona, including the Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy, the Institute of the Environment,the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences, and the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. 


Research Projects

  • Current projects at Iglobes involve sociologists, geographers, anthropologists, archaeologists, ecologists, and planetary scientists, and span four main themes:
  • Cooperation, conflict, and policy for water resources in the arid Americas;
  • The governance of natural resources and sparsely populated areas in the Americas; 
  • Ecological and societal adaptation and collapse in response to extreme climate events;
  • How extreme environments encountered on Earth and in the universe shape our sense of life and nature. Iglobes also supports research carried by the “Pima County Observatory”, which is a member of the French Human-Environment Observatory network program funded under the DRIIHM Laboratory Of Excellence. The Pima County Observatory awards seed grants on an annual basis, to promote innovative research focusing on the Sonoran Desert environment that benefits French-U.S. collaboration.