Research
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Perry World House aims to advance research and policy impact through four main areas of programming: climate, democracy, global justice and human rights, and security.
We draw on the extensive expertise of individuals in schools, departments, centers, and programs across Penn, and we bridge the worlds of academia and policymaking by engaging thought leaders from around the world in meaningful exchange and interdisciplinary research. Our growing global network of leaders and influencers value—and increasingly rely upon—Perry World House as a non-partisan resource for innovative ideas.
PWH presents a full roster of workshops and conferences across its four research themes, which examine issues from multiple perspectives and translate the findings into actionable policy proposals.
Research Themes
With the world increasingly close to critical warming thresholds, climate change is a defining challenge of our time, demanding urgent and transformative action. That is why Perry World House has made addressing climate change a core focus. Toward this end, PWH’s climate-focused work has primarily been focused on the human impacts of climate change, bringing experts to campus to advance discourse and work on climate migration, security, cities, finance, small islands, heat, and health. PWH has also worked closely with the International Peace Institute to achieve negotiated outcomes at the COP, playing a central role in the decision to establish new funding arrangements to address Loss and Damage, the unavoided impacts of climate change.
Perry World House’s democracy program harnesses Penn research and expertise to investigate and analyze challenges to democracy around the world. Democracy globally is in decline. By some estimates, 71 percent of the world’s population lives in autocracies. Compounding the threat is extreme political polarization; sophisticated authoritarian efforts to discredit democracy and spread disinformation; religious fundamentalism; and the erosion of the norms and guardrails that safeguard democracy.
Seventy-five years after the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, injustice, oppression, and violence continue to impede human freedom and dignity across the globe. Regional and armed conflicts, the unfolding climate crisis, and the rise of authoritarianism all present complex challenges to the pursuit of global justice.
Going forward, this program will host critical dialogues on an array of human rights issues concerning gender, migration, indigenous rights, reparations, and civil liberties.
The program will provide human rights experts and practitioners with the discursive and technological tools to demand global justice, while deepening Penn students' understanding on human rights issues and inform faculty research to ensure that future generations are equipped to confront injustice in all forms.
Click here to learn more about our Global Justice and Human Rights program.
Perry World House’s international security program will focus on the most pressing foreign affairs and security issues of the 21st century. The last several years have changed the global security landscape in dramatic ways: a revanchist China seeking to reshape the international order in its favor; a full-scale war in Europe after Russia invaded Ukraine; a terror attack in Israel and the resulting war in Gaza; the exponential growth in artificial intelligence and related debates; and a changing political landscape in Iran. A new authoritarian axis of cooperation between global pariah states—Russia, Iran, and North Korea—with China is growing, enabling these regimes economically, militarily, and politically.
