The MIT Center for International Studies (CIS) is an academic research center at the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...

. It sponsors work focusing on

international relations International relations (IR), sometimes referred to as international studies and international affairs, is the scientific study of interactions between sovereign states. In a broader sense, it concerns all activities between states—such as ...

security studies __NOTOC__ Security studies, also known as international security studies, is an academic sub-field within the wider discipline of international relations that studies organized violence, military conflict, national security, and international s ...

international migration International migration occurs when people cross state boundaries and stay in the host state for some minimum length of the time. Migration occurs for many reasons. Many people leave their home countries in order to look for economic opportunities ...

human rights Human rights are Morality, moral principles or Social norm, normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for ce ...

and justice,

political economy Political economy is the study of how Macroeconomics, economic systems (e.g. Marketplace, markets and Economy, national economies) and Politics, political systems (e.g. law, Institution, institutions, government) are linked. Widely studied ph ...

and

technology policy There are several approaches to defining the substance and scope of technology policy. According to the American scientist and policy advisor Lewis M. Branscomb, technology policy concerns the "public means for nurturing those capabilities and op ...

. The center was founded in 1951.Donald L.M. Blackmer, The MIT Center for International Studies: The Founding Years 1951–1969 (MIT, 2002). According to its website, CIS aims "to support and promote international research and education at

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the m ...

History

The

Center for International Studies was one of several academic research centers founded in the United States after

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. Its creation was originally funded by the

Central Intelligence Agency The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...

(CIA), in order to provide expert analysis on issues pertaining to the

Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...

rivalry with the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

. Prominent social scientists involved with CIS include

Lucian Pye Lucian W. Pye (; October 21, 1921 – September 5, 2008) was an American Political science, political scientist, Sinology, sinologist and comparative politics expert considered one of the leading China scholars in the United States. Educated at C ...

, Eugene Skolnikoff, William Kaufmann,

Walt Rostow Walt Whitman Rostow (October 7, 1916 – February 13, 2003) was an American economist, professor and political theorist who served as National Security Advisor to President of the United States Lyndon B. Johnson from 1966 to 1969. Rostow worked ...

Ithiel de Sola Pool Ithiel de Sola Pool (October 26, 1917 – March 11, 1984) was an American academic who was a widely celebrated and often controversial figure in the field of social sciences and information technology. He did significant research on technology an ...

, Carl Kaysen. Early on, the center specialized in political and economic development, military strategy, and Asia, and many of its faculty (e.g. Rostow and Kaysen) served in high government posts.

Daniel Ellsberg Daniel Ellsberg (born April 7, 1931) is an American political activist, and former United States military analyst. While employed by the RAND Corporation, Ellsberg precipitated a national political controversy in 1971 when he released the ''Pent ...

was a research fellow at CIS when he released the

Pentagon Papers The ''Pentagon Papers'', officially titled ''Report of the Office of the Secretary of Defense Vietnam Task Force'', is a United States Department of Defense history of the United States in the Vietnam War, United States' political and military ...

in 1971.

Programs

Th
Security Studies Program
(SSP), a joint program with the department of political science, was established in the 1970s. Many prominent security specialists in government, think tanks, the military and academia, including Geoffrey Kemp, Daniel Byman, Ken Pollack, and William Durch, undertook their doctoral studies in SSP. Since the early 1990s, it has been associated with the Neorealist school of international relations, led by such theorists as

Barry Posen Barry Ross Posen (born July 13, 1952) is Ford International Professor of Political Science at MIT and the director of MIT's Security Studies Program. An expert in the field of security studies, he currently serves on the editorial boards of the j ...

and

Stephen Van Evera Stephen William Van Evera (born 10 November 1948) is a professor of Political Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, specializing in International Relations. His research includes U.S. foreign and national security policy as well as c ...

. Th
MIT International Science and Technology Initiative
(MISTI) is a novel program in applied international studies. MISTI has placed 7,233 students around the globe from 1983 to 2015. In the 2014–2015 academic year, 880+ students participated. 31% of MIT students who graduated in 2015 participated in MISTI at some point during their MIT experience. Of these MISTI students, 27% participated in MISTI more than one time. The center organize
Seminar XXI
a yearly educational program for senior military officers, government and NGO officials, and other leaders in U.S. national security policy. In 2015, the MIT Center for International Studies established the MI
International Policy Lab
(IPL), whose mission is “to enhance the impact of MIT research on public policy, in order to best serve the nation and the world in the 21st century.” The Policy Lab will award up to $10,000 to faculty and research staff with principal investigator status who wish to convey their research to policymakers. The center also has programs in international political economy, particularly the MIT Program on Emerging Technologies (POET), a

National Science Foundation The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent agency of the United States government that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National I ...

awardee. Other programs include:
Bustani Middle East Seminar
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International Migration and Humanitarian Studies

Persian Gulf Initiative

Program on Emerging Technologies

International Policy Lab

South Asian Politics
Several visiting fellows and scholars join the center each year, including outstanding women journalists under the

Elizabeth Neuffer Elizabeth Neuffer (June 15, 1956 – May 9, 2003) was an American journalist who specialized in covering war crimes, human rights abuses, and post-conflict societies. She died at the age of 46 in a car accident while covering the Iraq War. Career ...

Fellowship, and distinguished public servants under th
Robert E. Wilhelm
Fellowship. Other individuals have spent weeks or months at the center, such as

Ranil Wickremasinghe Ranil Wickremesinghe ( si, රනිල් වික්‍රමසිංහ, ta, ரணில் விக்கிரமசிங்க; born 24 March 1949) is a Sri Lankan politician who is the current president of Sri Lanka since 21 July 2 ...

, former prime minister of Sri Lanka;

David Miliband David Wright Miliband (born 15 July 1965) is the president and chief executive officer (CEO) of the International Rescue Committee and a former British Labour Party politician. He was the Foreign Secretary from 2007 to 2010 and the Member of P ...

, former foreign secretary of the U.K.; and

Fatemeh Haghighatjoo Fatemeh Haghighatjoo (also spelled Haghighatjou and Haqiqatju; fa, فاطمه حقیقت‌جو, lit=Truth/Justice Seeker) is an Iranian scholar and reformism, reformist politician who represented Tehran, Rey, Shemiranat and Eslamshahr in the Maj ...

, a former reform member of the

Majlis of Iran The Islamic Consultative Assembly ( fa, مجلس شورای اسلامی, Majles-e Showrā-ye Eslāmī), also called the Iranian Parliament, the Iranian Majles (Arabicised spelling Majlis) or ICA, is the national legislative body of Iran. The P ...

Leadership and faculty

CIS includes 160 members of the MIT faculty and staff, mainly drawn from the departments of political science and urban studies, and visiting scholars from around the world. Administration: *

Richard J. Samuels Richard J. Samuels (born November 2, 1951) is an American academic, political scientist, author, Japanologist, Ford International Professor of Political Science and director of the Center for International Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of ...

, director and Ford International Professor of Political Science *

John Tirman John Tirman (December 13, 1949 – August 19, 2022) was an American political theorist. From 2004, Tirman was executive director and principal research scientist at the MIT Center for International Studies. There he led the Persian Gulf Initia ...

, executive director and principal research scientist *

, associate director and professor of political science Partial list of faculty: *

, Ford International Professor of Political Science, director, Security Studies Program * Kenneth A. Oye, associate professor of political science and engineering systems design; former director, CIS; director, MIT Program on Emerging Technologies *

Francis Gavin Francis J. Gavin is an American historian currently serving as the Giovanni Agnelli Distinguished Professor and Director of the Henry A. Kissinger Center for Global Affairs at Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies in ...

, Stanton Professor of Political Science *

Taylor Fravel Maris Taylor Fravel is an American scholar and author. He specializes in the areas of international relations, international security and territorial disputes. Background Fravel earned his BA in history (summa cum laude) from Middlebury Colleg ...

, associate professor of political science * Vipin Narang, associate professor of political science * Fotini Christia, associate professor of political science * Owen Cote, senior research scientist * Jim Walsh, research scientist

Wilhelm Fellows

Naomi Chazan Naomi Chazan ( he, נעמי חזן, born 18 November 1946) is an Israeli academic, activist, and politician. As a legislator, Chazan championed the causes of human rights, women's rights, and consumer protection. Chazan is a past president of th ...

, 2004, former Deputy Speaker of the Knesset, Israel *

Francis Deng Francis Mading Deng is a politician and diplomat from South Sudan who served as the newly independent country's first ambassador to the United Nations from 2012 to July 2016. Life and career Deng was educated at Khartoum University (Bachelor of ...

, 2005, Under Secretary General of the United Nations, former Foreign Minister, Sudan * Barbara Bodine, 2006, former U.S. Ambassador to Yemen * William J. Fallon, 2008, former admiral, U.S. Navy, commander of Pacific Command and Central Command * Hans Georg Eichler, M.D., 2010, senior medical officer at the

European Medicines Agency The European Medicines Agency (EMA) is an agency of the European Union (EU) in charge of the evaluation and supervision of medicinal products. Prior to 2004, it was known as the European Agency for the Evaluation of Medicinal Products or Euro ...

, London * Abbas Maleki, 2011, former Deputy Foreign Minister, Iran * Yukio Okamoto, 2013-, adviser to the government of Japan
Joel Brenner
2014-, former inspector general, National Security Agency

Neuffer Fellows

Jackee Budesta Batanda
2011–2012, reporter for th
Global Press Institute
Uganda * Priyanka Borpujari, 2012–2013, independent journalist based in Mumbai, India * Prodita Sabarini, 2013–2014, reporter from the English dail
''The Jakarta Post''
Indonesia * Louisa Reynolds, 2014–2015, independent journalist based in Guatemala City, Guatemala * Meera Srinivasan, 2015–2016, senior assistant editor wit
''The Hindu''
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References

MIT CIS Facebook Page
{{Authority control Center for International Studies