In establishing the Villanova Center for the Environment (VCE), the University affirmed its commitment to environmental stewardship, locally, regionally, nationally, and globally. The University acknowledges its responsibility to make available to the community beyond its physical borders the broad knowledge, experience, and expertise of its faculty, staff, and students to find new ways to minimize environmental degradation and to help solve environmental problems. Toward these ends, the VCE seeks to foster and facilitate interaction between university researchers and students, industry, governments, communities, and school districts.

Through research, development, and educational activities, and with strengths in engineering, the sciences, the social sciences, economics, law and nursing, the VCE assembles multidisciplinary teams to address increasingly complex environmental issues that face us into the 21st century. Research topics include: water pollution control technology, municipal, industrial and residual solid waste management, industrial waste stream management, toxic and hazardous waste management, urban hydrology and storm water management, biodiversity assessments and conservation biology, and biological effects of water, air and soil pollution.