founder of the Cynthia and George Mitchell Foundation, recognized early in life that educating young people to think critically about complex problems was the key to forging a sustainable path for the environment and society. He watched as the international sustainability movement gained momentum, and often described the principles of sustainability as the critical threads that could, and must, unite the different disciplines-from the social sciences to architecture and city planning to environmental studies. "You have to get the young people energized," George Mitchell said. "If you could get 100,000 young people really working hard, you could change the thinking of this country." The sustainability science approach to solving complex environmental and social problems aims to bring together scholarship and practice, global and local perspectives, and disciplines across natural and social sciences. The approach is neither pure science nor applied science. Instead, scientific disciplines are tools for problem solving, with the scientific approach defined by the problems being addressed rather than the particular discipline employed. George Mitchell realized that it was necessary to infuse the flavor of sustainability science into as many disciplines as possible at the university level in order to prepare our future leaders for the changing world ahead. We would like to thank Marilu Hastings, Vice President of Sustainability Programs at the Cynthia and George Mitchell Foundation for supporting this work, both through her personal encouragement and her foundation's generous financial support. We would also like to thank Jessica Hellman, Tom Richard, David Lodge and Andrew Horning for reviewing initial drafts of the survey. Finally, we would like to thank the representatives of the 18 research institutes who participated in this survey: