Message from the Dean

Over more than 20 years since its founding, the Graduate school of the Environment and Energy, affiliated to Islamic Azad University, Science and Research Campus has evolved from a professional small school to a large and extensive training ground for tomorrow's environmental scientists, experts and managers. Research and teaching efforts have expanded to include not only environment and energy but also a wide set of concerns involving the interactions of human societies and natural systems.

As the University’s environment campus approaches its second decade, students and faculty alike are reflecting on its history, with a critical eye to the future. The school's goal is to provide broad-gauged professional education that equips its graduates to assume influential roles in government, business, nongovernmental organizations, public and international affairs, journalism, research, and education. The faculty and I will continue to direct our teaching and research efforts to solving local, national, and global problems and, drawing on such considerations as those listed below, will continue to evaluate and expand our existing programs.

• Human alterations of the biosphere have reached critical levels. As a result, nations face a new generation of global-scale environmental challenges-including climate change, ozone depletion, deforestation, loss of biological diversity, and the deterioration of natural resources.

• Many solutions to today's environmental challenges lie outside the established “environmental sector” and require approaches different from those previously adopted. Progress now requires a fusion of environmental and economic thinking and a willingness on the part of business, government, and environmental leaders to work together to integrate goals. Environmental objectives need to be incorporated into corporate planning, energy strategy, technology policy, R&D funding, tax policy, international trade and finance, development assistance, and other matters that once seemed far removed.

• Cooperation between developing and industrial countries is critical, with current progress hampered by a desperate shortage of trained personnel and human capacity.

• The increased awareness that environmental concerns are moving into the international arena will require that Iran environmental policy be more in concert with other nations, thus giving birth to a new field of environmental diplomacy.

I hope and expect that those of you entering the school at this time as students will join me in shaping the school's future and exerting a positive influence on the prospects for environmental progress.

Dean, Professor M. Abbaspour