January 30, 2019
This month Marco Janssen, a professor in the School of Sustainability and director of the Center for Behavior, Institutions and the Environment, started his two-year term as president of the International Association for the Study of the Commons. Founded in 1989, the IASC is devoted to bringing together multi-disciplinary researchers, practitioners and policymakers for the purpose of improving governance and management, advancing understanding and creating sustainable solutions for the commons, common-pool resources or any other form of shared resource.
The founding president of the IASC, the late Elinor Ostrom, won the 2009 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for her analysis of economic governance, especially the commons. The study of the commons has extended beyond the traditional natural resources to applications in digital environments, health, urban space and space exploration.