Think Tanks and Civil Societies Program (TTCSP)

Think Tanks and Civil Societies Program (TTCSP) is a non-profit program at the University of Pennsylvania

University of Pennsylvania

The University of Pennsylvania is a private, Ivy League university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Penn is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States,Penn is the fourth-oldest using the founding dates claimed by each institution...

in Philadelphia, PA. TTCSP was established at the Foreign Policy Research Institute

Foreign Policy Research Institute

The Foreign Policy Research Institute is an American neoconservative think tank based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is "devoted to bringing the insights of scholarship to bear on the development of policies that advance U.S...

in 1989. The program is currently under the direction of James McGann

James McGann

Dr. James G. McGann is a member of faculty at the University of Pennsylvania, a Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute and founder/director of the Think Tanks and Civil Societies Program...

, Ph.D., a Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, President of McGann Associates, and associate director of the International Relations Program at the University of Pennsylvania

University of Pennsylvania

. The program researches, catalogues, and maintains a comprehensive database of approximately 6,300 think tanks from 206 countries and territories.

Program History

The TTCSP was established at the Foreign Policy Research Institute in 1989. It began with its focus on think tanks in the US. In the 1990s the Program became increasingly global as a result of the political and economic transformation that took place in Central and Eastern Europe. Think tanks and other civil society organizations in the West were enlisted to provide aid and to transfer knowledge and provide technical assistance to fledgling democracies and market economies. The work of TTCSP gained the attention of the World Bank

World Bank

The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans to developing countries for capital programmes.The World Bank's official goal is the reduction of poverty...

. R. Kent Weaver

R. Kent Weaver

Kent Weaver is a professor at Georgetown University. His focus is on a variety of fields in U.S. political science, including comparative social policy, comparative political institutions, and the politics of expertise. Weaver joined the Georgetown Public Policy Institute in the fall of 2002,...

of the Brookings Institution

Brookings Institution

The Brookings Institution is a nonprofit public policy organization based in Washington, D.C., in the United States. One of Washington's oldest think tanks, Brookings conducts research and education in the social sciences, primarily in economics, metropolitan policy, governance, foreign policy, and...

and James McGann of the Foreign Policy Research Institute were asked to help conceptualize what became the Global Development Network

Global Development Network

The idea of a Global Development Network was conceived at a meeting organized by The World Bank in Washington in May 1997. Participants included the heads of GDN's regional network partners and representatives of various bilateral and multilateral organizations and academic associations including...

, a World Bank sponsored conference in Barcelona, Spain. This was the first global conference on think tanks and resulted in the publication Think Tanks and Civil Societies: Catalysts for Ideas and Action in 2000. In 2008, the TTCSP moved to the International Relations Program at the University of Pennsylvania.

Program Objectives

The Think Tanks and Civil Societies Program describes itself as having five main objectives:

To develop strategies to improve the performance and efficacy of think tanks in creating, sharing and using policy-proposals and to engage policymakers and members of civil society in the process of forming policy.
To create a virtual global think tank that will allow collaboration, sharing information, and the transferring policies and policy-proposals between institutions.
To promote constructive debate and analysis on policy issues through a global community that builds on existing local and regional networks.
To find, research, and share strategies and technologies that facilitate collaborative work and information sharing among public policy research organizations and other institutions around the world.
To promote interdisciplinary dialogue among think tanks, policymakers, and members of civil society to explore how the sustainability of think tanks can play a crucial part in civil societies.

External links

Think Tanks and Civil Societies Website
http://www.fpri.org/ - provides information on the Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI), including scholar bios and works published.
http://www.fpri.org/research/thinktanks/ - provides information on the Think Tanks and Civil Societies Program, including history and background, program goals, research priorities, and publications.
http://www.fpri.org/about/people/mcgann.html - a biography of James McGann, Director of the Think Tanks and Civil Societies Program.
http://www.brookings.edu/experts/weaverr.aspx - a biography of R. Kent Weaver, Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution
http://www.gdnet.org/cms.php?id=gdn_development_research - provides information on the Global Development Network, including its mission, history, research priorities, and publications.
http://www.sas.upenn.edu/irp/ - provides comprehensive information on the International Relations Program at the University of Pennsylvania

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

Program History

Program Objectives

See also

External links