About the Nicholas Institute

In 2005, the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions became the first environmental-policy-centered Institute with a Duke University affiliation. Since then, the Nicholas Institute has grown into a major nonpartisan participant in key debates surrounding climate change, the economics of limiting carbon pollution, oceans governance and coastal management, emerging environmental markets and freshwater concerns at home and abroad.

As of 2022, the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions has merged with the Duke University Energy Initiative to create a new organization: the Nicholas Institute for Energy, Environment & Sustainability. Working closely with Duke University schools and other units, the institute advances the university’s mission to build a more sustainable world by developing transformative educational experiences; galvanizing and conducting impactful research; and engaging with key decision makers at the global, national, state, and local levels. A new website is under development. Learn more about the merger.

The Nicholas Institute is part of Duke University and its wider community of world-class scholars. This unique resource allows the Nicholas Institute’s team of economists, scientists, lawyers and policy experts to not only deliver timely, credible analyses to a wide variety of decision makers, but also to convene these decision makers to reach a shared understanding regarding this century’s most pressing environmental problems.