British-American Project - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The British-American Project is a fellowship of some 600 leaders and opinion formers from a broad spectrum of occupations, backgrounds and political viewpoints, drawn in equal numbers from the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

and the United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

. The Project was created in 1985 to perpetuate the close relationship between the two countries established by an earlier generation during the Second World War; for that reason, it was originally known as the British-American Project for the Successor Generation.

The Project meets annually for a four-day conference on a topic of current concern to both countries: ideas and experiences are exchanged, and friendships cemented. Each year, 24 new participants are selected from either side of the Atlantic, on the basis of service to their communities and professional achievement, and sponsored to attend the conference as Delegates. At the end of each conference, Delegates are elected Fellows of the Project. Fellows from past years attend the annual conferences at their own expense, many returning year after year.

By this simple mechanism, many thousands of transatlantic friendships and professional contacts have been established over the past fourteen years.

Goals

According to Sir Charles Villiers

Charles Hyde Villiers

Sir Charles English Hyde Villiers, MC was a British businessman and chairman of British Steel from 1976 till 1980....

and Lewis Van Dusen, Jr., the goal, or the dream, was creating, in a younger generation, a multiplicity of transatlantic friendships like their own. This was what drew them to the concept of the British-American Project when it was first put to Villiers in London and when Villiers first took it to Philadelphia to discuss with Van Dusen.

A US BAP organiser describes the BAP network as committed to “grooming leaders” while promoting “the leading global role that [the US and Britain] continue to play”.

Annual event

Each year, 48 new participants are selected from a large depth and breadth of intellectual and influential society on both sides of the Atlantic. At the start of each year, each existing member can nominate people in the general age range of 28 to 40. The nomination processes are different in the U.S. and UK. The UK nominees are interviewed and tested: there are competitive debates, management games and personal presentations; U.S. nominees must submit letters of recommendation and have a separate process.

Once selected, the Delegates attend the centerpiece of the British-American Project, its annual conference, held in November each year and alternating between the U.S. and the UK. In November 2009, this gathering took place in Edinburgh. The theme was “From Abundance to Scarcity – Sustainability and Development in the 21st. Century”. In November 2010, the conference was held in Philadelphia, PA, the of-cited place of the organization's beginnings. At this conference the British-American Project celebrated its 25th Anniversary.

The overarching aim of the yearly conference is to provide a wide range of stimuli to provoke thought and debate, to inform and challenge, and to foster greater understanding between participants about competing views on a topic, and of course there are discussions on the similarities and differences between the two countries’ attitudes to the issues addressed during the conference.

Politicians

Stephen Dorrell

Stephen James Dorrell is a British politician. A member of the Conservative Party, he served in the Cabinet of Prime Minister John Major as Secretary of State for National Heritage and Secretary of State for Health...

David Miliband

David Wright Miliband is a British Labour Party politician who has been the Member of Parliament for South Shields since 2001, and was the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs from 2007 to 2010. He is the elder son of the late Marxist theorist Ralph Miliband...

Peter Mandelson

Peter Benjamin Mandelson, Baron Mandelson, PC is a British Labour Party politician, who was the Member of Parliament for Hartlepool from 1992 to 2004, served in a number of Cabinet positions under both Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, and was a European Commissioner...

George Robertson

George Robertson, Baron Robertson of Port Ellen

George Islay MacNeill Robertson, Baron Robertson of Port Ellen, is a British Labour Party politician who was the tenth Secretary General of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, between October 1999 and early January 2004; he succeeded Javier Solana in that position...

Baroness Symons

Elizabeth Symons, Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean

Elizabeth Conway Symons, Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean, PC is a British life peer and former General Secretary of the FDA Trade Union and a Minister of State...

Jonathan Powell (Blair’s chief of staff) Baroness Scotland

Patricia Scotland, Baroness Scotland of Asthal

Patricia Janet, Baroness Scotland of Asthal, PC, QC is a British barrister, and served in many ministerial positions within the UK Government, most notably as the Attorney General for England and Wales and Advocate General for Northern Ireland.-Early life and career:Baroness Scotland was born in...

Douglas Alexander

Douglas Garven Alexander is a British Labour Party politician, who is currently the Shadow Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs in the shadow cabinet of Ed Miliband. He has held cabinet posts under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, including Secretary of State for Scotland and...

Geoff Mulgan

Geoff Mulgan is Chief Executive of the National Endowment for Science Technology and the Arts and Visiting Professor at University College, London, the London School of Economics and the University of Melbourne...

Sadiq Khan

Sadiq Aman Khan is a British Labour Party politician, who has been the Member of Parliament for Tooting since 2005, succeeding Tom Cox as the Labour MP for the seat...

Matthew Taylor

Matthew Taylor (Labour politician)

Matthew Taylor is Chief Executive of the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce in the United Kingdom.-Background:...

David Willetts

David Linsay Willetts is a British Conservative Party politician and the Minister of State for Universities and Science. He is the Member of Parliament representing the constituency of Havant in Hampshire.-Education:...

Rushanara Ali

Rushanara Ali is a British Labour Party politician and Associate Director of the Young Foundation, who has been the Member of Parliament for Bethnal Green and Bow since 2010...

(2004) Bobby Jindal

Bobby Jindal

Piyush "Bobby" Jindal is the 55th and current Governor of Louisiana and formerly a member of the United States House of Representatives. He is a member of the Republican Party....

, Governor of Louisiana Diana Negroponte

Diana Villiers Negroponte

Diana Mary Villiers Negroponte is an English-born American trade lawyer and adjunct professor of law at Fordham University whose professional name is Diana Villiers Negroponte. She is the wife of John Negroponte, the former United States Deputy Secretary of State and former U.S...

, the wife of John Negroponte

John Negroponte

John Dimitri Negroponte is an American diplomat. He is currently a research fellow and lecturer in international affairs at Yale University's Jackson Institute for Global Affairs...

Rafael Anchia

Rafael Anchía is a Democratic member of the Texas House of Representatives, representing the Dallas-based 103rd District since 2004. He had previously served on the board of the Dallas Independent School District. He declined to run for Mayor of Dallas in 2007.Anchia lived in Miami as a child,...

, Texas House of Representatives Dan Branch

Dan Branch

Dan Branch is a member of the Texas House of Representatives from Dallas, Texas, U.S.A. First elected in 2002, as a Republican, Branch is currently in his fourth term representing District 108, the "heart of Dallas", which includes Downtown, Uptown, Historic East Dallas, Greenland Hills, Lower...

, Texas House of Representatives Lolita Jackson, Manhattan Director, Community Affairs, NYC Mayor's Office

Media

Jeremy Paxman

Jeremy Dickson Paxman is a British journalist, author and television presenter. He has worked for the BBC since 1977. He is noted for a forthright and abrasive interviewing style, particularly when interrogating politicians...

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown MBE is a Ugandan-born British journalist and author, who describes herself as a "leftie liberal, anti-racist, feminist, Muslim, part-Pakistani...a very responsible person"...

Caroline St John-Brooks

Dr Caroline St. John-Brooks was an Anglo-Irish journalist and academic.She gained a BA in English Literature from Trinity College Dublin, an MA in Education from the University of Ulster at Coleraine, and a PhD in the teaching of English in secondary schools from Bristol University in 1980...

Charles Moore

Charles Moore (journalist)

Charles Hilary Moore is a British journalist and former editor of The Daily Telegraph.-Early life:He was educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge where he was awarded a BA in History and was a friend of Oliver Letwin.-Career:A former editor of The Spectator , the Sunday Telegraph and The...

James Naughtie

James Naughtie is a British radio presenter and radio news presenter for the BBC. Since 1994 he has been one of the main presenters of Radio 4's Today programme.- Biography :...

Ben Hammersley

Ben Hammersley is a British internet technologist, journalist, author, broadcaster, and diplomat, currently based in London, England....

(2010) Evan Davis William Crawley

William Crawley

-Television presenter:He recently presented Blueprint, a three-part television natural history series, which ran from 31 March 2008, as the centre-piece of the most ambitious multi-platform broadcasting project in the history of BBC Northern Ireland. The Blueprint season united TV, radio and online...

, BBC presenter Rowan Pelling

Rowan Pelling

Rowan Dorothy Pelling is a British journalist and broadcaster, who first achieved note as the editor of a monthly literary/erotic magazine, entitled the Erotic Review....

Andrea Wong

Andrea Wong was the Chief Executive Officer and President of Lifetime Networks from April 2007 to February 2010. She oversaw Lifetime, Lifetime Movie Network, the myLifetime.com website and Lifetime’s public advocacy campaigns, among other areas of the company....

, CEO Lifetime Television Mo Rocca

Mo Rocca

Maurice Alberto "Mo" Rocca is an American writer, comedian and political satirist.-Early life and work:...

, Social Commentator Lawrence Kasdan

Lawrence Kasdan

Lawrence Edward "Larry" Kasdan is an American film producer, director and screenwriter.-Life and career:Kasdan was born in Miami, Florida, the son of Sylvia Sarah , an employment counselor, and Clarence Norman Kasdan, who managed retail electronics stores.His Brother is the writer/producer Mark...

, Motion Picture Director Tad Friend

Tad Friend

Tad Friend is a staff writer for The New Yorker. His current focus of coverage is the entertainment industry, and he often writes the "Letter from California" for The New Yorker. His memoir, Cheerful Money: Me, My Family, and the Last Days of Wasp Splendor, was published by Little, Brown in...

, Writer, The New Yorker Daniel Drezner

Daniel Drezner

Daniel W. Drezner is currently a professor of international politics at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, the author of several books, the author of many Op-Ed pieces in major publications, a blogger, and a commentator.In 2005, he was denied tenure by the University of...

(2003) Joel Stein

Joel Stein

Joel Stein is a journalist who wrote for the Los Angeles Times and is a regular contributor to Time.-Early life:Stein grew up in Edison, New Jersey and attended J. P. Stevens High School, where he was a writer and entertainment editor for Hawkeye, the student newspaper...

(2007)

Arts

Lauren Greenfield

Lauren Greenfield is an American artist, documentary photographer, and documentary filmmaker. She has published three monographs of her photographic work, directed four documentary films, exhibited her photographic prints in museums throughout the world, and had her work published in a variety of...

, Photographer Ellen V. Futter

Ellen V. Futter

Ellen V. Futter is president of the American Museum of Natural History. She previously served as president of Barnard College for 13 years.Futter was born in New York City and attended high school in Port Washington, New York...

, President, American Museum of Natural History Po Bronson

Po Bronson

Po Bronson is an American journalist and author who lives in San Francisco, California.-Personal history:Bronson was born in Seattle, Washington. After attending Lakeside School in Seattle, he graduated from Stanford University in 1986 and briefly worked as an assistant bond salesman in San...

, Author Nestor Torres

Nestor Torres

Nestor Torres is a jazz flautist who was born in Mayaguez, Puerto Rico in 1957. He took flute lessons at age 12 and began formal studies at the Escuela Libre de Música, eventually attending Puerto Rico’s Inter-American University. At 18, he moved to New York with his family...

, Flautist Andrew Litton

Andrew Litton

Andrew Litton is an American orchestral conductor. Litton is a graduate of The Fieldston School, and holds both undergraduate and Masters degrees in music from Juilliard....

, Director, Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra of Norway

Other

Shami Chakrabarti

Shami Chakrabarti CBE , has been the director of Liberty, a British pressure group, since September 2003. Chakrabarti is the Chancellor of Oxford Brookes University.-Early life:...

, Director, Liberty Leslie Jacobs

Leslie Jacobs

Leslie Rosenthal Jacobs is an award-winning education reform advocate, business executive and philanthropist. Born in New Orleans, she built her family's small, independent insurance agency into one of the largest throughout the South, before merging the Rosenthal Agency with Hibernia National Bank...

Timothy J. Creamer, Astronaut, NASA Dr. Michael Lomax, President & CEO, United Negro College Fund

United Negro College Fund

The United Negro College Fund is an American philanthropic organization that fundraises college tuition money for black students and general scholarship funds for 39 private historically black colleges and universities. The UNCF was incorporated on April 25, 1944 by Frederick D. Patterson , Mary...

Jonas S. Chartock

Jonas S. Chartock is a policymaker and national expert on teacher development, education leadership, and United States public charter schools. He currently resides in New Orleans, Louisiana....

, CEO, Leading Educators Candy Lightner

Candy Lightner

Candace Lynne "Candy" Lightner is the organizer and founding president of Mothers Against Drunk Driving . On May 3, 1980, Lightner’s 13-year-old daughter, Cari, was killed by a hit-and-run driver at Sunset and New York Avenues in Fair Oaks, California.The leniency of the sentence given to the...

, Founding President, Mothers Against Drunk Drivers

Patrons

Lord Carrington, a former Secretary General of NATO

Secretary General of NATO

The Secretary General of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation is the chairman of the North Atlantic Council, the supreme decision-making organisation of the defence alliance. The Secretary-General also serves as the leader of the organisation's staff and as its chief spokesman...

Lord Robertson

George Robertson, Baron Robertson of Port Ellen

, another former Secretary General of NATO. Philip Lader

Philip Lader

Philip Lader was the United States Ambassador to the United Kingdom and as of 2010 is chairman of WPP Group plc, a global media and communications firm....

, former U.S. Ambassador to Britain

United States Ambassador to the United Kingdom

The office of United States Ambassador to the United Kingdom was traditionally, and still is very much so today due to the Special Relationship, the most prestigious position in the United States Foreign Service...

George J. Mitchell

George John Mitchell, Jr., is the former U.S. Special Envoy for Middle East Peace under the Obama administration. A Democrat, Mitchell was a United States Senator who served as the Senate Majority Leader from 1989 to 1995...

, former United States Senate

United States Senate

The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...

Majority Leader

External links

British-American Project (official website)
Transatlantic Elite - British American Project for the successor generation collection of articles from various publications
Friends in high places: You won't have heard of the British-American Project, …

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