Planning Process

The stated objective of the new Natural Resources Management & Development Institute is…“to position Auburn University to better serve the communities of agriculture, forestry, and wildlife sciences, and better respond to the challenges faced by our state and nation in meeting our agricultural and natural resource needs.”

Immediate Goals

While many goals have been identified to establish NRMDI, two goals are being addressed immediately. These include:

Finding a permanent name for the organization.
Establishing national centers of excellence for bioenergy/bioproducts and for water resources at Auburn University.

Current Activities

Naming the Institute

Ratcliff Strategies, LLC, has been retained to assist with the creation of a widely accepted and understood name for the Institute and to help establish the Institute’s vision and mission statements.

To accomplish this, Ratcliff Strategies is surveying peer institutions, particularly in the Southeast, and conducting focus group sessions across the state. The focus groups involve a diverse array of stakeholders including:

AU researchers, faculty, and staff
State and local officials
Commodity and rural economic development representatives
Alabama A&M University’s extension and research faculty and staff
Business, agriculture, and forestry constituents

Upon completion of the focus group and surveying efforts, Ratcliff Strategies has provided a permanent record of the proceedings and a summary of all major research findings, implications, and recommendations. These will soon be made available on this Web site.

Establishing Centers of Excellence

Two centers, one for bioenergy and bioproducts and another for water resources, have been established under the Institute umbrella. They are being led and developed by Steve Taylor, head and professor of the AU Department of Biosystems Engineering, and Graeme Lockaby, associate dean and professor of the AU School of Forestry and Wildlife Sciences.

Through these centers, Auburn will bring interdisciplinary research, development, and outreach to projects and programs that will take science out of the laboratory and into the field, providing solutions to problems and issues confronting various constituents in the state, the region, and the nation.