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With the assistance of the National Science Foundation, IGERT Clarkson University has established an integrated education and research program for the redesign of products, processes, systems, and organizations to balance industrial manufacturing activities with environmental stewardship. The overall goal of this program is to train and graduate students, principally at the doctoral level, who have strong technical skills coupled with extensive exposure to the environmental, managerial, ethical, economic, policy and communication aspects required to facilitate change in this complex field.
The objectives of this program are

  1. to attract highly qualified students of diverse backgrounds to doctoral studies in engineering and science who are interested in contributing to environmental manufacturing management (EvMM) through the conduct of research,
  2. to develop a new approach to doctoral studies in which skills from the fields of engineering, the "hard" sciences, social sciences, and managerial and rhetorical fields are combined,
  3. to conduct research in appropriately defined areas in conjunction with industrial partners using a research group approach, and
  4. to facilitate transfer of research results into practice.
Traditional approaches to doctoral studies emphasize development and demonstration of expertise in a narrow topic of research, involving only that coursework that is germane to the topic, and is conducted under the guidance of a single mentor. Although a certain broadened knowledge of the field in which the topic is placed may be gained, the bridging to other disciplines is not intentionally encouraged. Advanced studies in the field of environmental engineering and science began to change this approach, with the need to incorporate concepts from the sciences, but now even these interdisciplinary areas are being challenged for further extension. In many ways the EvMM program is reflective of change which is already occurring in the marketplace, as outlined below. It is a principal thesis of this program that these changes have created new and fertile areas for in-depth research which, upon investigation, will yield important results that advance the knowledge base in this field and will facilitate implementation of new ideas and concepts consistent with the need for creating a sustainable environment.