The Weatherhead Center for International Affairs sponsors and manages the Weatherhead Initiative in International Affairs, established in 1998 by a generous gift from Albert and Celia Weatherhead and the Weatherhead Foundation. The Weatherhead Initiative in International Affairs is an ambitious program to support large-scale innovative research on topics at Harvard central to the Weatherhead Center’s activities.

The Weatherhead Center’s mission is to support scholarly research, principally in the social sciences in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and in related disciplines in the University’s professional schools. This research focuses on international, transnational, and comparative topics, both contemporary and historical, including rigorous policy analysis as well as the study of specific countries and regions outside the United States.

The first Weatherhead Initiative project, begun in 2000–2001, on “Military Conflict as a Public Health Problem,” was directed by Professors Gary King (Department of Government) and Chris Murray (Harvard School of Public Health).

The second Weatherhead Initiative project, begun in 2001–2002, was on the role of identity—national, ethnic, religious, and otherwise—in international and domestic politics. It was directed by Professors Alastair Iain Johnston and Yoshiko Herrera (Department of Government), Terry Martin (Department of History), and Rawi Abdelal (Harvard Business School).

The third Weatherhead Initiative began in 2002. The project “Religion and Global Politics” examined the relationship of religious belief to types of political activity. Samuel P. Huntington, the Albert J. Weatherhead University Professor, headed the project. Four other Harvard affiliates—J. Bryan Hehir, David Little, Jessica Stern, and Monica Toft—also directed components of the project, as did Daniel Philpott from Notre Dame University and Timothy Shah from the Ethics and Public Policy Center.

The fourth project, which began in January 2003, was “International Human Capital Flows and their Effects on Developing Countries.” The project considered international human capital flows and their effects on “brain drain,” cross-national labor market efficiencies, taxation options, and the capacity of human beings to construct a world of their choice. The four faculty members directing the project were Mihir Desai (Harvard Business School), Devesh Kapur (Department of Government), Dani Rodrik (Harvard Kennedy School), and Mark R. Rosenzweig (Harvard Kennedy School). The focus of the project was on the political economy of migration and, in particular, the foreign migration of skilled labor.

Two projects received funding in the 2005–2006 academic year. The first project, “Humanitarian Response to Forced Migration: The 1947 Partition of India,” was headed by Jennifer Leaning of the Harvard School of Public Health and Sharon Stanton Russell (MIT). The project included collaboration with Sugata Bose (Department of History). The second project, “The Political Economy of Globalization: How Firms, Workers, and Policymakers Are Responding to Global Economic Integration,” was headed by Margarita Estévez-Abe and Michael J. Hiscox (both of the Department of Government) and included collaboration with Richard Freeman (Department of Economics) and Robert Z. Lawrence (Harvard Kennedy School).

Beginning in 2007, Michèle Lamont, Robert I. Goldman Professor of European Studies and Professor of Sociology and of African American Studies, headed a project entitled “A Comparative Study of Responses to Discrimination by Members of Stigmatized Groups.” This international multidisciplinary project analyzes the discursive and behavioral strategies that members of stigmatized groups use to cope with racism and discrimination.

The Initiative grant, began in 2008 was led by Rohini Pande, Mohamed Kamal Professor of Public Policy, and Erica Field, assistant professor of economics. Their project, “Empirical Studies of the Economics of Urban Poverty Reduction,” examined how markets and institutions in urban areas of the developing world affect the prospects of the poor and the problem of ghettoization, with associated negative consequences for health, economic mobility, and social stability.

In 2009–2010, a research team of Emmanuel Akyeampong (Department of History), Robert Bates (Department of Government), Nathan Nunn (Department of Economics), and James Robinson (Department of Government) is launching a project titled “Understanding African Poverty over the Longue Durée.” Through this project the researchers seek to achieve a better understanding of why Africa’s economic performance has been so poor in the 50 years since independence, and also to address why Africa seems to have been so poor historically—and, of course, whether this has really been the case.

The team intends to approach the question of African poverty through both collective and individual undertakings. First, they plan to gather a diverse group of leading scholars for two conferences: one at the International Institute for the Advanced Study of Cultures, Institutions and Economic Enterprise (IIAS) in Accra, Ghana (http://www.interias.com) and one at the Weatherhead Center. With participants’ conference papers, they intend to produce a book. Second, in the fall of 2009, Bates and Robinson will be teaching an undergraduate lecture course titled “Why is Africa Poor?” Finally, in order to enhance these collective endeavors, each member of this team has proposed an individual research project which fits within the larger rubric.

Proposals for support under the Weatherhead Initiative must come from Harvard professors with continuing regular appointments.

Faculty do not have to be formally associated with the Weatherhead Center to apply.

What Research is Supported

• Large-scale pioneering and integrative projects involving members of different Harvard faculties in collaborative research.
• Proposals should have a clear integrative core; they should not merely link together a series of loosely related projects.
• Proposals may involve other faculty members from research institutions in the United States or from other countries.
• Priority will be given to proposals that:
  • are either interdisciplinary or interfaculty, and certainly to those that are both;
  • seek to apply theoretical insights to the collection or analyses of data;
  • aim to generate theoretically grounded hypotheses and/or rigorous policy analysis; or
  • seek to work out a particular idea or set of ideas that could animate a larger-scale research project.

Amount of Financial Support

Proposals for the Weatherhead Initiative can encompass work to be completed within two to three years. In 2009–2010, up to $170,000 will be available to support one Weatherhead Initiative project. The Center expects to make an award every year. In special circumstances, the Weatherhead Center will also allocate additional funds to Weatherhead Initiative projects that meet its priorities, for example:

• Funding may also be sought in tandem with proposals for Weatherhead Center faculty research semester leave grants, and student research fellowships, both of which are supported by other Weatherhead Center sources.
• Professors interested in exploring a project for a Weatherhead Initiative proposal may apply for small grants (up to $5,000) to facilitate the development of a proposal for submission. These grants could also include supplementary funding to organize a one-day workshop or a series of dinner discussions among scholars interested in a particular topic to develop promising areas for collaborative research on the scale and within the time frame envisaged by the Weatherhead Initiative.

Who is Eligible

All assistant, associate, and full professors with continuing regular appointments in all the faculties and schools of Harvard University who are engaged in research pertinent to the Weatherhead Center’s mission may apply.

The Weatherhead Initiative is not limited to Faculty Associates of the Center.

How to Apply

• Proposals should be double-spaced. A proposal should explain the significance of the work, its place in a scholarly research community, the dimensions of the work, and the specific use of the funds being sought. Supporting documentation should include curriculum vitaes for all those engaged in the project, a detailed budget, a calendar for completion of the work, and a preliminary plan for the dissemination of the research results.
• The substantive portion of the proposals should be carefully developed, and the Initiative Selection Committee may ask for additional information after the initial proposal is submitted. The Selection Committee is also prepared to give a brief written response to preliminary proposals to help faculty assess the feasibility of their projects.

Those who are considering submitting a proposal are strongly urged to make early contact with Executive Director Steven B. Bloomfield. Samples of previous proposals are also available.

Deadline

Proposals for the first round of the Weatherhead Initiative are due by October 1, 2009. The proposals will be considered by the Initiative Selection Committee by early November, and project teams may be asked to meet with the selection committee in late November or early December. The announcement of awards will be by the end of the fall semester, and funding for projects can begin after July 1, 2010.

Proposals submitted by this year’s deadline may be scheduled to start at any time within the next three academic years.

Review Process

The Weatherhead Initiative Selection Committee is composed of faculty members from different schools of the University. It screens proposals and makes recommendations to the Weatherhead Center Executive Committee, which makes the final decision.

• The Selection and Executive Committees have the option of asking for oral presentations by the team or teams whose proposals are under consideration.
• The Selection Committee may seek outside evaluations of individual proposals. These evaluations will be shared with the research teams.
• In exceptional cases, the Selection Committee may recommend, and the Executive Committee may decide, to allocate the income from two years for one proposal, or, alternatively, not to award the grant in a particular year and instead pool the income with that from the next year.
• The charge to members of the Selection Committee will be to represent the mission of the Weatherhead Center and Harvard University rather than the particular interests of their schools.

Terms

• The proposed output from a Weatherhead Initiative project could include a scholarly book, an edited volume, a series of monographs or articles, a more widely broadcast analytical policy report, or a combination of these.
• Projects must be based at the Weatherhead Center, although individual faculty members need not be in full-time residence at the Center for the life of the project.
• Principal investigators for the project and visiting scholars in residence at Harvard are eligible to be appointed Weatherhead Initiative Associates for up to three years while the project is still active.
• The Initiative project team may work with a liaison team from the Center’s Faculty Associates concerning the development of the project.
• Faculty who receive support from the Center should acknowledge it in future publications of their research.
• All grant recipients must submit a one- to two-page memo at the end of each academic year reporting on the use of the Weatherhead Initiative grant in which initiative funds have been used. This report should focus on the intellectual and scholarly results of receiving funding. Reporting memos are due June 30.