Released in April 2012, the National Global Change Research Plan 2012-2021 serves as the guiding document of the United States Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) for the next ten years. The plan is built around four broad strategic goals: advance science, inform decisions, conduct sustained assessments, and communicate and educate. The plan builds on the program's basic strengths in integrated observations, modeling, and information services for sciences that serve societal needs. The publication of this document fulfills one aspect of the Global Change Research Act of 1990 which says that the USGCRP will "assist the Nation and the world to understand, assess, predict, and respond to human-induced and natural processes of global change." Visitors looking for a brief overview of the plan can also click on the fact sheet, which offers a nice overview of this lengthy document.