The Institute
Brown University's Watson Institute for International Studies is a leading center for research and teaching on the issues that shape our world. The Institute's research confronts the important problems of our time – particularly insecurity and inequality - and explores the possibilities and limitations in the global flows of knowledge, people, wealth, and weapons. Watson’s work involves policy makers and publics in shaping alternative futures for a better world.
Michael Kennedy,
Director of the Watson Institute
Our core faculty of anthropologists, economists, political scientists, sociologists, and other specialists works across academic disciplines with Brown faculty associates and an ever-changing cohort of visiting scholars and practitioners from around the world. The Institute collaborates with key organizations such as the United Nations, national governments, non-governmental organizations, and international enterprises to seek practicable solutions to today's global problems.
Watson oversees one of the University's largest undergraduate academic concentrations – the International Relations Program - with over 400 students. Also at the Institute are the Development Studies, Latin American Studies, Middle East Studies, and South Asian Studies concentrations for undergraduates. The Graduate Program in Development supports interdisciplinary learning and contextual expertise for doctoral students of the social sciences.
Across the University, partnerships include the Year of India in 2009-10, the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, the International Writers Project, the William R. Rhodes Center for International Economics and Finance, and the Choices for the 21st Century Education Program.
A full agenda of seminar series, conferences, lectures, workshops, and other meetings each year brings leading scholars and public figures to the Institute to put current events into context, explore emerging global issues, develop policy, and publish research. The Institute also develops documentaries, webcasts, and other global interest media to reach the public.
Evolution
The late Thomas J. Watson Jr., chairman of IBM, ambassador to the former Soviet Union, and graduate of Brown (Class of '37), was acutely aware of the international dimensions of our lives. In 1981, when he returned from Moscow, he founded the Center for Policy Development at his alma mater, and he asked his former deputy chief of mission, Mark Garrison, to serve as its first director. The Center's primary goal was to seek solutions to the most pressing global problems of that day - specifically, a nuclear confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union.
In 1986, Brown University's Institute for International Studies was created to incorporate the Center and Brown's other international programs, and in 1991, the Institute was rededicated to honor Ambassador Watson. Howard R. Swearer, the fifteenth president of Brown University, served as the founding director of the Institute.
More than twenty-five years after Thomas Watson first began gathering scholars and policymakers at Brown, the Institute dedicated to his legacy addresses the world's growing complexity in the wake of the Cold War.
Funding
Each year, Watson receives funding from individual gifts, grants, and a designated endowment. The Friends of the Watson Institute (FoWI) also provide support and act as ambassadors for the Institute and University. In addition, Watson mobilizes outside funding from a variety of sources for specific research projects.
Governance
A Board of Overseers provides guidance to the Institute. Board members include former diplomats and government officials, as well as presidents and directors of global firms, leaders of nongovernmental organizations, and renowned scholars. John P. Birkelund LLD'02 (hon.) is the chair of the Board and David E. McKinney serves as vice-chair.
Contact The Watson Institute
The Watson Institute (www.watsoninstitute.org) is located at 111 Thayer St., Box 1970, Providence, RI 02912-1970; tel. 401.863.2809; fax: 401.863.1270; email: watson_institute@brown.edu. For driving and walking directions, click here.
For press inquiries and other information, contact Karen Lynch
401.863.9721
Karen_Lynch@brown.edu