Our Mission Statement

The Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement at the University of Pennsylvania is founded on the principle that a democratic, open, secure, tolerant, and interconnected world benefits all Americans. Based in our nation’s capital, the Penn Biden Center engages more of our fellow citizens in shaping this world, while ensuring the gains of global engagement are widely shared.

U.S. leadership has sustained an open world for more than 70 years, enabling virtually every advantage we enjoy as Americans and helping to ensure our safety, our prosperity, and our way of life. Comprised of common norms, rules, and institutions, the American-led liberal international order has facilitated the free movement of people, goods, ideas, and capital; protected the sovereignty and self-determination of nations; and promoted basic human rights and fundamental freedoms for all peoples.

The Penn Biden Center engages Penn’s students and partners with its faculty and global centers to convene world leaders, develop and advance smart policy, and strengthen the national debate for continued American global leadership in the 21st century.

Today, this order is under threat. It is being challenged by authoritarians and extremists and strained by the pace, scope, and disruptive nature of global change. It is in our interest as Americans to defend the liberal international order, even as we work to improve it to better reflect the times in which we live and address the new challenges we face.

The Penn Biden Center engages Penn’s students and partners with its faculty and global centers to convene world leaders, develop and advance smart policy, and strengthen the national debate for continued American global leadership in the 21st century.

Throughout his decades of public service, the Center’s namesake, Joseph R. Biden, Jr., has fought to secure American global leadership by defending and advancing a liberal international order. The Center will bring President Biden's lifelong commitment to public service to its every endeavor.

Introducing the Penn Biden Center
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