Partnerships & Networks

True transformation requires more than academic excellence; it demands collaboration. The Just Transformations to Sustainability Initiative is committed to linking Notre Dame’s research and educational efforts with action-oriented partnerships across communities and regions, in order to cultivate the shared capacity to elevate local knowledge and co-create innovative approaches and tools that integrate contextualized data and insights.

At Notre Dame, our partners, their goals, and their needs are central to everything we do. They inform our research questions and curricular programs. They unlock hands-on learning opportunities for our students. And they ensure that the tools, knowledge, and solutions we create together reach the institutions, global leaders, and communities that can benefit the most. In its work building partnerships and networks across sectors, the JTS Initiative pursues three primary objectives:

1. Cultivate partnerships and networks around shared goals and long-term vision, ensuring that our collaborations elevate and advance the priorities of our partners and the communities they represent.

2. Create mechanisms for deep and sustained local engagement where Notre Dame is best positioned to make a difference—from our home in South Bend, to our programs around the world.

3. Harness Notre Dame’s position as a global convener to elevate the knowledge, lived experience, priorities, and needs of sustainability scholars, practitioners, policymakers, and community leaders.