Weatherhead Center Announces Faculty Research Program for 2000-01

The Weatherhead Center for International Affairs has invited faculty members to submit preliminary ideas and proposals for the Center’s ambitious new research program, the Weatherhead Initiative in International Affairs.

Up to $250,000 will be available annually to support one major Harvard-wide international project. The Weatherhead Center seeks to encourage faculty proposals at an early stage by developing a consultative process within the Center and with the Weatherhead Initiative Selection Committee.

According to Professor Jorge Domínguez, director of the Weatherhead Center, “The Weatherhead Initiative is the most exciting and creative program resulting from Al and Celia Weatherhead’s generous $21 million gift in 1998. We are looking to support large-scale pioneering and innovative research across the faculties at Harvard at an unprecedented level of financial assistance.”

The purpose of the Weatherhead Initiative is to encourage collaborative research on international topics. All Harvard professors with continuing regular appointments are eligible to submit proposals and faculty members from other research institutions from the U.S. or abroad can also be part of the research teams.

“Priority will be given to proposals that are interdisciplinary or interfaculty, and we expect that they will have a clear integrative core rather than merely link a series of loosely-related projects,” Domínguez said.

Although projects for the Weatherhead Initiative can encompass work that takes two to three years to complete, a substantial portion of the research should be able to be completed within one academic year. Most of the $250,000 will be awarded to one project each year.

Derek Bok, former president of Harvard and now the Three Hundredth Anniversary University Professor at the Kennedy School, chairs the Selection Committee for the Weatherhead Initiative. That committee, composed of faculty members from different Schools of the University, will screen proposals and make recommendations to the Weatherhead Center about which projects to fund for the Weatherhead Initiative.

Jim Cooney, executive director of the Weatherhead Center, explained, “The selection committee will play a key role in the initiative, and we are delighted that Derek Bok will chair it. The committee is prepared to work closely with faculty to develop potential projects for the initiative.”

The Weatherhead Center was established in 1958 as the Center for International Affairs at Harvard, and it was renamed in 1998 in honor of the Weatherheads. The Center’s mission is to support scholarly research on international, transnational and comparative topics, and the Weatherhead Initiative reaffirms the Center’s mandate to reach out not only to the Faculty of Arts and Sciences but also to the University’s professional Schools.