Perry World House Receives $500,000 Grant to Connect Academic Research with Policymakers

Second Grant from Carnegie Corporation of New York will help Penn Continue to “Bridge the Gap”

Perry World House, the University of Pennsylvania’s international affairs hub, has again been awarded a prestigious two-year grant from Carnegie Corporation of New York to connect Penn’s research and expertise with the global policy community. The new $500,000 grant is part of Carnegie’s “Rigor and Relevance” program that supports universities and will help underwrite a series of multi-disciplinary workshops, faculty support, and communications efforts to disseminate new ideas widely.

“The Carnegie Corporation grant reaffirms the mission of Perry World House to make a tangible impact on essential challenges around the world,” said Penn Provost Wendell Pritchett. “We are grateful for this strong support, which enables Penn faculty and scholars to collaborate with distinguished global leaders in a wide range of important and innovative new areas.”

In 2017, Carnegie Corporation awarded Perry World House a first grant of $498,000. With the support, Perry World House hosted workshops on how emerging technologies are affecting the global order, how cities are responding to climate change, and how refugee return may work better. The grant also allowed Perry World House to support Penn faculty reshaping courses to be more policy relevant.

“Carnegie Corporation has been a wonderful partner for Perry World House, providing not just financial support but best practices in how to bridge the gap between academia and the policy community,” said Michael C. Horowitz, Professor of Political Science and Interim Director of Perry World House, the principal investigator on the grant. “Together, we’ve catalyzed vital new research and with this new grant we will promote new workshops, new course work, and new ideas.”

In addition to hosting new workshops and supporting additional course development, Perry World House will use the grant to emphasize evolving issue areas—including emerging technologies, human movements, climate change, and the changing international order—where there is the greatest need for the academic and policy worlds to leverage one another. Drawing on lessons learned from the first grant, Perry World House will also experiment more with the functional form of workshops, increase the number and diversity of workshop perspectives, and take insights directly to policymakers in national capitals and beyond.

Perry World House brings students and faculty from across Penn’s schools and disciplines together with practitioners and policymakers from around the world to advance interdisciplinary, policy-relevant research on the world’s most urgent global affairs challenges. More information on Perry World House’s research and programming is available at https://global.upenn.edu/perryworldhouse.