About PERC—the Property and Environment Research Center

[KANNA KUMAR SIRIPURAPU]

What is PERC?

PERC—the Property and Environment Research Center—is the nation’s oldest and largest institute dedicated to improving environmental quality through markets and property rights. Research is at the heart of PERC’s work followed by outreach and education. Formed more than 25 years ago, PERC applies economic thinking to environmental problems. Located in Bozeman Montana, PERC pioneered the approach known as free market environmentalism (FME).

What does PERC do?

PERC scholars provide the intellectual capital that fuels our approach to environmental problems and how to solve them. It is possible to avoid more regulation, government bureaucracy, and financial waste, and, instead, solve environmental problems in a cooperative and collegial manner. Markets and property rights can show us the way. PERC’s goal is to reach the broadest possible audience, including government officials, environmentalists, opinion makers, policy experts, grassroots environmentalists, entrepreneurs, scholars, and students. PERC’s ideas can be a beacon that leads us to a better environment using a better process. This is what PERC does:

• Research and Policy Analysis - Original research by PERC scholars and fellows leads to new policies and approaches for applying free market environmentalism to a wide variety of natural resource issues. Current topics of research include public lands management, water marketing, timber, Native American institutions, protection of fish and wildlife habitat, fisheries preservation, conservation easements, environmental entrepreneurship, the shifting relationship between resource extraction and resource protection, and use issues
• Outreach - PERC's research is widely distributed to policy makers, congressional staff members, journalists, business executives, academics, and opinion leaders. In this way, it can be incorporated into the thinking and planning that goes into policy formation. It also serves to define a new way of thinking about how to solve environmental problems. Outreach takes the form of a quarterly magazine, books, articles, and policy papers, email alerts, web sites, internet publications, and a stimulating array of conferences, workshops, speaking engagements, expert testimony, and fellowships, as well as several events specifically for journalists.
• Education - PERC offers a wide array of educational materials, curricula, and programs to every level of learner from middle school to professionals. From curricula for young students, to a syllabus for college students and programs at PERC for both undergraduate and graduate students, PERC aims to meet the needs of a whole spectrum of students. It also offers intense seminars and fellowships for early career conservationists, business professionals, and young professors as well as senior scholars.

Programs

As PERC has grown over the past 25 years, so too have the number and range of programs that we are able to offer. Many, but not all of the in-residence programs include a stipend, room and board, and travel expenses or at least some of these amenities. Some programs are open to the public and others are limited in size and designed for particular groups, such as conservation professionals or professors. These require applications, and the entire process can be completed online.

To give you an idea of the wealth of PERC programs see the list below. Click on the name for current details and applications when appropriate.

• Undergraduate Student Seminar
  - for college juniors and seniors
• Graduate and Law Student Fellowships
• Roe Legal Fellowship
• Eviropreneur Camp
  -early career conservation leaders
• Four Colloquia Co-sponsored by Liberty Fund and PERC
  - for undergraduate students, graduate students, conservation professionals, early career professors and scholars
• Lone Mountain Fellowships
  - for scholars, journalists, policy-makers, and environmentalists
• Julian Simon Fellowship
  - for scholars to develop policy-oriented research on natural resource and environmental conservation.
• Media Fellowships
  -for reporters, writers, broadcast journalists
• Annual Conference for Journalists
• Political Economy Forum
  - professional conservationists and scholars
• Annual Lone Mountain Summit
  -environmentalists actively working on critical issues
• Teacher Workshops
• Seminars for Congressional Staff
• Regional Colloquia
  -the public
• An Evening with PERC
  - the public

For more information kindly log on to : http://www.perc.org/index.php