Policy at MIT

Mind and Hand

MIT’s motto Mens et Manus—Mind and Hand—means that we balance pure research with important and innovative applications. Sustainable management necessitates an ecosystems-based approach, drawing on the latest information about the biological and physical environments of which commercially important resources are a part.

The Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill, in particular, demonstrates the importance of better scientific information to underpin the management of offshore mineral resources. Several programs at MIT focus on the policy-making side of sustainable oceans management.

The MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Climate Change brings together experts from across the Institute to address the questions and challenges that have arisen as a result of global climate change.

The world-renowned MIT Sloan School of Management devotes a degree of its business acumen to the task of managing our oceans. In 2007, the MIT Sloan Initiative for Sustainable Business and Society was launched in an effort to change business in a way that acknowledges the tight relationships among economic, societal, and environmental systems. Working with experts from MIT Sloan, Oceans at MIT is able to effect real change.