Arizona State University is calling for universities worldwide to adopt a more open model of research to address the growing urgency of global issues like climate change.

Peter Schlosser, the director of ASU's Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory, says that hundreds of years ago, universities were originally intended to bring different fields of study together in order to create a more complete understanding of the world, which is similar to the open collaboration that ASU is proposing.

Over time, Schlosser says, universities became more focused on the progress of separate fields, which has led to the total separation of fields, isolating communities from each other and from knowledge that would be more useful if it was shared.

Most resistance comes from those who are deeply rooted in what Schlosser calls the "disciplinary approach," where students are directed to focus on one subject rather than working on many.

"I think it took and still takes some of those who came up in the disciplinary training approach time to understand that the world has changed," he said.

"The world is changing even more rapidly now than it has in the past decades or centuries, and in order to solve new problems, we need new approaches,” he added.

The university recently received a grant from the National Science Foundation for its Southwest Sustainability Innovation Engine, a project spanning Utah, Nevada, and Arizona that aims to build a sustainable ecosystem for the Southwest through water security and renewable energy, among other things.

By working with the community it serves, ASU is fulfilling one of the primary goals in its New American University Charter and showing the benefit of the open collaboration it calls for.

Schlosser says that in order to deal with the global-scale challenges the planet faces today, humanity needs to move quickly on both local and global fronts.

"We, in essence, were asleep at the wheel while the tank was going into the red," he said, adding that the increased frequency and intensity of natural disasters "are messages that our planet is sending us, saying 'You better wake up now and take action.' Otherwise, if we let that escalate, then life will become very difficult."