Our Work & Impact
Promoting social change and inspiring the next generation of leaders with research.
We’re passionate about our areas of expertise — the science and practice of compassion, the creation and sharing of advanced computational modeling to mitigate flood risk, and the impacts of human trafficking and modern slavery — as well as global partnerships addressing environmental peacebuilding and planetary health.
What does that mean in practice? Each of our core areas of expertise includes collaborative and innovative research, as well as programs designed to educate and inspire undergraduate and graduate students.
LATEST NEWS & RESEARCH
In the News: Sanders Explains Landscape’s Role in Libya Floods
The recent deadly storm and flooding in Derna, Libya demonstrates how infrastructure, landscapes, and climate plays a role in determining how disastrous a storm could be....
In the News: Newport Beach Floods – Sanders Dubs them Harbringers
Last week the Orange County Register turned to Blum Center coastal flooding expert Brett Sanders to understand the cause of recent flooding in Newport Beach. Why might...
In the News: Big Waves Sending Big Message
The Los Angeles Times recently published a piece on the changing wave dynamics along California's coast. In this article, several experts were asked to weigh in on a...
PARTNERSHIPS
ABOUT
The UCI Blum Center’s mission is to promote social change and inspire the next generation of leaders to action with research on poverty alleviation. By collaborating across disciplines with students, faculty and practitioners, the UCI Blum Center rigorously explores systemic, geopolitical, technological and climate forces affecting poverty. The UCI Blum Center’s innovative education programs, basic and applied research, and work in community development and policy-making engage future leaders to reduce the risks of poverty for vulnerable populations and improve humanity and its institutions. The Blum Center at University of California Irvine focuses its work around 3 key division areas: 1. Flood Hazards, 2. Human Trafficking and 3. Science & Practice of Compassion with partnerships in Environmental Peacemaking, Technology Innovation for Humanitarian Action and policy making in Washington D.C.
The UC Blum Center is a network of interdisciplinary research initiatives across University of California’s 10 leading public university campuses working to solve the global challenge of poverty. The Blum Center was first established at UC Berkeley in 2006 as the UC Blum Center for Developing Economies. The accessibility of the UC-wide Blum Center’s public research aims to educate and engage a diverse group of tomorrow’s leaders to become conscious change agents and lead fact-based solutions to poverty alleviation. The Blum Center at UC Irvine launched their poverty alleviation research to coincide with the campus’ 50th anniversary in 2014.
Read a one-page overview of the Blum Center’s research initiatives.