The Leading Public Policy Research Organizations In The World
James G. McGann, Ph.D.
Director Think Tanks and Civil Societies Program
International Relations Program University of Pennsylvania
The 2009 Global Go To Think Tank Rankings marks the fourth year edition of what has now become an annual report. The Think Tanks and Civil Societies Program at the International Relations Program, University of Pennsylvania has created a process for ranking think tanks around the world. It is the first comprehensive ranking of the world’s top think tanks, based on a worldwide survey of hundreds of scholars and experts. The think tank index has been described as the insider’s guide to the global marketplace of ideas. For this ambitious project, I have assembled a panel of close to 300 experts from around the world, across the political spectrum and from every discipline and sector to help nominate and select public policy research centers of excellence for 2009. The members of the Expert Panel were asked to nominate regional or global centers of excellence that they felt should be recognized for producing rigorous and relevant research, publications and programs in one or more substantive areas of research.
The Global Go To Think Tank Rankings was launched in 2006 in response to the never-ending requests that I received from journalists, scholars and government officials to provide a list of the leading think tanks in a particular country or region of the world. When I first designed the project it was intended to identify some of the leading think tanks in the world in an attempt to answer these inquiries in a more systematic fashion. Over the last 4 years the process has been refined and the number of institutions and individuals involved in the project has grown steadily. Continue reading THE GLOBAL “GO-TO THINK TANKS”
ISN Special Issue January 2010
In the small Italian town of Rosarno, riots erupted in early January as illegal workers protested against the racist attack of two men by the criminal organization that had arranged for their migration and employment in Calabria. The riots marked a symptom of a wider problem in Italy’s south – the government’s inability to cope with the increasing power and bravado of organized crime groups. The organizations responsible for bringing illegal workers into Calabria operate outside the formal Italian economy and their operations present a growing threat to the human rights of immigrants and Europe’s internal security. Continue reading Italy in Peril: Organized Crime and State Impotence in the South
The PEW Forum December 2009
Executive Summary
For more than half a century, the United Nations and numerous international organizations have affirmed the principle of religious freedom.1 For just as many decades, journalists and human rights groups have reported on persecution of minority faiths, outbreaks of sectarian violence and other pressures on religious individuals and communities in many countries. But until now, there has been no quantitative study that reviews an extensive number of sources to measure how governments and private actors infringe on religious beliefs and practices around the world. Continue reading Global Restrictions on Religion
Arab Reform Initiative The Arab public has a very good understanding of the concept of reform and a desire to see reform measures implemented in various different areas. The area most in need of reform, according to the respondents, is the economy, with political reform and tackling corruption given as the next [...] [...]
A View from Venus
By Peter Gill
“Intelligence” may well be the final frontier insofar as human rights are concerned. It represents a range of activities that have been carried out by rulers since time immemorial—spies have been characterized as the “second oldest profession” (Knightley 1987)—and, even when organized more formally in state [...]
The Researchers’ View
Steven Wooding, Jonathan Grant
Prepared for the Higher Education Funding Council for England- RAND Europe
This report, prepared for and funded by the Joint Funding Bodies’ Review of Research Assessment, presents findings from a series of nine facilitated workshops held with academics and research managers across the UK in December 2002. The objective of the workshops was to investigate views of research quality and attitudes
towards different models of research assessment. This report is intended to inform the deliberations of Sir Gareth Roberts’ review1 of how research at UK higher education institutions is assessed. Continue reading Assessing Research
By WILLIAM A. EDDY BEFORE THE ALLIED LANDING ON THE COAST OF North Africa on November 8, 1942, the handful of us who knew the date and place of the landings were terrified lest we might talk in our sleep. In those days before the landings it was imperative that one neither cancel nor increase normal [...] [...]
Israeli Settlement Activities & Related Policies Palestinian Academic Society for the Study of International Affairs, Jerusalem Throughout history, Jerusalem has thrived as an important political and cultural center and as a religious focal point for the three monotheistic religions. This status has resulted in numerous struggles taking place in an attempt to possess this significant city. From [...] [...]
Grant F. Smith Director of the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy (IRMEP) In this story Grant reveals the emerging details of the secret battles between the Kennedys and the Israel lobby. AIPAC Founder Isaiah L. Kenen and Ted Kennedy The lobby’s accolades for the late Ted Kennedy and his support of Israel mask the generally [...] [...]
Recent fighting in Pakistan has displaced at least 2.4 million people. USIP Jennings Randolph Senior Fellow Imtiaz Ali testified on July 29 before the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Near Eastern and South and Central Asian Affairs about “Responding to the Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) Crisis in Pakistan.” July 2009 | Congressional [...] [...]
Jamal Dajani Link TV – The last time Fateh, the largest faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), held a general convention was two decades ago in 1989 in Algiers. Next week, some 2,000 members of the organization, from both the territories and the Diaspora, are expected to descend on the town [...] [...]
Recidivism or Reassertion By Anthony H. Cordesman CSIS Any visitor to today’s Iraq can see, that violence has been sharply reduced, that US and Iraqi forces have done much to meet the mix of remaining threats, and that Iraqi forces are making real progress. At the same time, any planning for US troop withdrawals [...] [...]
