Our modern civilization has created a triple challenge that is threatening the future of humanity and the health of the Earth's life-support system, on which the welfare of all human and non-human life depends. Here at MARI, we aim to provide transformational education with the goal to foster holistic systems thinking, literacy in information, risk, and sustainability as well as carry out research related to the triple challenge. We want to bring into the public discussion use-ready knowledge on adaptation to modern global change to the public.
We welcome new members who want to collaborate with us on education, research and outreach.
[Nov. 04, 2025] AI Perception Survey: A short survey on perceptions of Artificial Intelligence is open for students and faculty. Go to the Survey or use the QR code to take the survey. Results will be published in a Story here in the AI VCC.
[Aug. 24, 2025] National Conference on Undergraduate Research (NCUR): The National Conference on Undergraduate Research (NCUR) will be held in Richmond April 13-15, 2026. If you are an undergraduate students conducting research, then you might consider presenting your work at the NCUR. Abstracts open Sep. 9 to Dec. 5, 2025. See https://ncur.secure-platform.com/2026/ for more details.
[Apr. 19, 2025] A Call to Action for Humanity: The new book by Rutger Bregman is a “Call to Action for Humanity” (Trevor Noah). Read the extract in the Guardian.
[Mar. 21, 2025] Impact Learning Community in Sustainability Leadership in Fall 2025:
[Apr. 04, 2026] Open Letter about “Generative AI”: A few days ago, Emily Tucker, Executive Director of the Center on Privacy & Technology at Georgetown Law published an open letter on Medium titled “An Open Letter to Georgetown Students, In Response to Recent Announcements by the University about "Generative AI".” In this open letter she makes strong points against a broad accepting of generative AI in education. Her reasoning is very relevant and all students, not just the ones at Georgetown should carefully consider this open letter.
[May. 22, 2026] DRG VCC opened: The "Disaster Risk Governance VCC" has been initialized and is open now.
[May. 21, 2026] NEXUS VCC opened: The "Food-Water-Energy Nexus VCC" has been initialized and is open now.
[May. 09, 2026] Doomsday Clock is Getting Closer to Midnight: In January, the Doomsday clock was set to 85 seconds before midnight, the closest setting since it was established in 1947 in response to the threat of nuclear war. Sophie McBain in her article “‘The odds are not in our favour’: who sets the Doomsday Clock – and what can they tell us about the future of humanity?” emphasizes that with the wars on Iran and on the Ukraine, the rapid and largely uncontrolled development of AI and the climate breakdown all together increasing the likelihood of a nuclear war, the clock now stands closer to midnight than ever before. She asks the question of whether we can buy ourselves more time.
