GLP News

The Global Land Programme (GLP) IPO moved to its new home at the University of Maryland’s Department of Geographical Sciences in the United States on 1 February 2023. This transition was made possible by a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant in support of the land science community as a key part of international global change research infrastructure.

By transitioning to the United States, GLP will collaborate with new partners of the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP), including the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and its Land-Cover and Land-Use Change Program, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). 

We are deeply appreciative for the generosity and camaraderie shown by the Centre for Development and Environment (CDE) and the University of Bern in hosting and supporting us over the past 7 years. We also gratefully acknowledge the financial support from the Swiss Academies of Sciences (SCNAT) and Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) without which we could not have grown and sustained the strong and vibrant community we share. 

We will now continue to build on more than 20 years of producing knowledge about land systems as solutions to global change, advancing co-design, and inter- and transdisciplinary methods, and strengthening land system science as a sustainability science, to help policymakers and the public understand what’s at stake at this critical moment in global development.

Looking forward we’ll have many new opportunities to work together: the 5th Open Science Meeting in the Americas in 2024, growing our Early Career Network (ECN), convening policy-relevant land dialogues and establishing strategic partnerships, and organizing synthesis and agenda setting activities to develop key LSS methods, products, tools, and open data, and to advance LSS knowledge. 

Wherever you are and however you can join us – as working groups, nodal offices, fellows, and members – we are looking forward to continuing to grow the land system science community with you!