Building a New STEM Workforce, Together
Collective action is one of the Academy’s key strategies for addressing global challenges. Learn how we’re using this method to impact the future of STEM.
Published May 27, 2016

Common agenda; comprehensive measurements; mutually reinforcing activities; constant communication; and a backbone organization guiding the process and making sure everyone is accountable. These are the key ingredients to collective action. And when they are combined, they can have an incredible impact on some of the major challenges we face around the globe.
In just 15 years, collective action helped reduce extreme poverty globally by more than half and increased primary school enrollment in developing regions by tens of millions. Most of us know this effort as the United Nations' Millennium Development Goals, Global Research Agenda for Nutrition Sciences.
And now we're using collective action to address the Global STEM Paradox, in which we've found that despite the fact that many students are being educated about STEM subjects in schools, they are not receiving critical skills that the jobs of the future demand. The result is that employers can't fill key jobs, local economies are suffering, and students are unable to make the transition from education to career.
On April 16, 2016, our President & CEO, Ellis Rubinstein, was invited to give a speech at the World Strategic Forum, organized by the International Economic Forum of the Americas. In the video excerpt below, you can learn more about how we're working together with hundreds of partners to overcome the STEM Paradox.
Learn more about our Global STEM Alliance here.