The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, located in Washington, D.C., is a United States Presidential Memorial that was established as part of the Smithsonian Institution by an act of Congress in 1968. It is also a highly recognized think tank, ranked among the top ten in the world. Named in honor of President Woodrow Wilson, the only President of the United States to hold a PhD, its mission is "to commemorate the ideals and concerns of Woodrow Wilson by: providing a link between the world of ideas and the world of policy; and fostering research, study, discussion, and collaboration among a full spectrum of individuals concerned with policy and scholarship in national and world affairs." In 2019, the Wilson Center was ranked by the University of Pennsylvania's Think Tanks and Civil Societies Program as the 11th best think tank in the world, the number five think tank in the U.S., and the world's top think tank for regional studies and institutional collaboration.
Organization
The Center was established within the Smithsonian Institution, but it has its own board of trustees, composed both of government officials and of individuals from private life appointed by the President of the United States. The Center's director and staff include scholars, publishers, librarians, administrators, and support staff, responsible to the trustees for carrying out the mission of the Center. The trustees and staff are advised by a group of private citizens called the Wilson Council. Interns, usually undergraduate or graduate students, support the activities of visiting scholars and staff while learning the business of top-level research. Most of the Center's staff form specialized programs and projects covering broad areas of study. These programs and projects organize and host conferences and seminars, and support many kinds of research, communication, and publication on topics relevant to their areas. The Center also publishes a digital magazine, the Wilson Quarterly.
Funding
The Center is a public–private partnership. Approximately one-third of the Center's operating funds come annually from an appropriation from the U.S. government, and the Center itself is housed in a wing of the Ronald Reagan Building, a federal office building where the Center enjoys a 30-year rent-free lease. The remainder of the Center's funding comes from foundations, grants and contracts, corporations, individuals, endowment income, and subscriptions. Because of its historic reliance on congressional appropriations, the Center posts on its website a Plan for Federal Funding Hiatus.
Administration
The Board of Trustees, currently led by Governor Scott Walker, are appointed to six-year terms by the President of the United States. Trustees serve on various committees including executive, audit and finance, development, investment, fellowship, and investment policy.
Director, President, and CEO of the Wilson Center: Jane Harman
* David J. Skorton, Secretary, Smithsonian Institution
Woodrow Wilson Awards
Each year, the Woodrow Wilson Center gives out several awards recognizing members of the community who have shown an outstanding commitment to President Woodrow Wilson's dream of integrating politics, scholarship, and policy for the common good. Recipients fall into two award categories, those receiving the award for Public Service, and those receiving the award for Corporate Citizenship. Awardees are selected by the Board, and distributed at dinners benefitting the Center in different locations each year.
Programs
Most of the Center's staff form specialized programs and projects covering broad areas of study. There are approximately 14 programs, some of which are described below.
Africa Program
Established in 1999, the Wilson Center's Africa Program focuses on international affairs issues as affect Africa, conducts programmatic work to train and mentor rising leaders in Burundi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and facilitates meetings between the policymaking communities of Washington, D.C., and Africa. Its current director is Monde Muyangawa.
Asia Program
The Wilson Center's Asia Program analyzes the politics, policy, culture, and issues of the broader Asia-Pacific region, encompassing a region stretching from Afghanistan to Japan.
Brazil Institute
Since its founding in 2006, the Brazil Institute has focused on analyzing and convening panels to discuss Brazilian politics, economics, and the country's global profile.
Canada Institute
Founded in 2001, the Canada Institute analyzes Canada-U.S. relations, trade, and Canada's international role as polar ice melts.
The Cold War International History Project supports the full and prompt release of historical materials by governments on all sides of the Cold War, seeking to integrate new sources, materials and perspectives from the former Eastern Bloc with the historiography of the Cold War. In particular, it disseminates new information and perspectives from previously inaccessible sources from the former Communist world on the history of the Cold War. In 2011, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars partnered with East China Normal University, Shanghai, to launch the ECNU-Wilson Center Cold War Studies Initiative, it is supported by the Wilson Center's flagship Cold War International History Project and ECNU's Cold War International Studies Center, the first Cold War Studies center in China.
The Environmental Change and Security Program was founded in 1994 to explore the connections among environmental, health, and population dynamics and their links to conflict, human insecurity, and foreign policy.
The History and Public Policy Program at the Woodrow Wilson Center focuses on the relationship between history and policy-making and seeks to foster open, informed and non-partisan dialogue on historically relevant issues.
The Kennan Institute, founded in 1974 as a division of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, is committed to improving American understanding of Russia and the successor states to the Soviet Union.
The Kissinger Institute analyzes the political, economic, historical, and cultural relationships between the United States and China. Named after Henry A. Kissinger, who as secretary of state was instrumental in opening diplomatic relations between the U.S. and China. Its current director is Robert Daly.
Mexico Institute
The Wilson Center's Mexico Institute conducts original research and analysis on Mexico's economy, convenes meetings, and proposes public policies. The institute focuses on five key areas: Mexico's security and rule of law, economic competitiveness, migration, the U.S.-Mexico border, and energy issues.
The Middle East Program, launched in 1998, analyzes geopolitical, cultural, and social trends in the Middle East and North Africa region. From May 8 until August 21, 2007, Dr. Haleh Esfandiari, then-director of the Middle East Program, was imprisoned in Tehran, Iran, in the Evin Prison. She was released on bail and had her passport returned to her on September 2, 2007. Esfandiari was then permitted to leave Iran. The former director of the Middle East Program is Dr. Henri Barkey.
The North Korea International Documentation Project translates and disseminates newly declassified documents about North Korea, largely drawing from its former communist allies. The documents are then distributed on the Wilson Center's Digital Archive site and curated in the project's dossier series.
Science and Technology Innovation Program
The Science and Technology Innovation Program focuses on understanding bottom-up, public innovation; top-down, policy innovation; and, on supporting responsible and equitable practices at the point where new technology and existing political, social, and cultural processes converge. Many projects focus on the international nature of science and technology, such as the Global Mosquito Alert Consortium and upcoming Earth Challenge 2020 project. Key themes in STIP's work include citizen science; cyber security, through the Digital Futures Project; and serious games, through the Serious Games Initiative.
