Integrating federal research on global change and climate change

The U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) coordinates and integrates federal research on changes in the global environment and their implications for society. The USGCRP began as a presidential initiative in 1989 and was mandated by Congress in the Global Change Research Act of 1990 (P.L. 101-606), which called for "a comprehensive and integrated United States research program which will assist the Nation and the world to understand, assess, predict, and respond to human-induced and natural processes of global change."

Led by a team of Principals from each of the USGCRP's 13 participating agencies,  the USGCRP engages in a variety of activities aimed to strengthen and strategically direct climate change research in the United States, and improve the flow of that information to policy-makers, federal, state, and local decision-makers, and the public. These activities include international events, large-scale program elements, and smaller thematic interagency working groups. To find out about more of our current activities, please see the menu to the left.