Weatherhead Center Announces Research Clusters
The Weatherhead Center for International Affairs announces its research clusters for academic year 2025–2026, including two new collaborative clusters that will operate from fall 2025 to spring 2028. The Research Cluster on Global LGBTQI+ Human Rights will add a new research-focused element to the work currently underway at the Carr-Ryan Center for Human Rights at Harvard Kennedy School. The Research Cluster on Global Climate Policy will strengthen a collaborative policy-oriented climate community among several researchers at Harvard and MIT; this cluster is also supported by the Salata Institute. Existing research clusters that will continue over the next three-year cycle include: Comparative Inequality and Inclusion; Identity Politics (on hiatus in AY26–27); and Business & Government. The Research Cluster on Global History will continue in 2025–2026. See below for descriptions for the Weatherhead research clusters and their corresponding principal investigators.
Weatherhead research clusters are interdisciplinary communities that develop ideas, generate new international networks, and bring energy to the Weatherhead Center by actively conducting research on questions of broad global significance. They meet these goals through organizing seminars and conferences and producing articles or other output aimed at academic and public audiences. They foster new intellectual connectivity among members—and across cohorts—by bringing together faculty with students, postdoctoral fellows, and visiting scholars.
NEW: Research Cluster on Global LGBTQI+ Human Rights
Faculty: Mathias Risse (HKS), Timothy Patrick McCarthy (HKS, HGSE)
In collaboration with the Carr-Ryan Center for Human Rights at Harvard Kennedy School
The deliberate targeting of LGBTQI+ communities is part of an increasingly coordinated and well-resourced transnational strategy to polarize societies, weaken democratic institutions, and expand illiberal influences. This rising transnational threat is in many respects a reactionary backlash against hard-earned advances won by and for LGBTQI+ people over the last generation. This research cluster examines the interplay of state and nonstate actors as leading drivers of this global backlash against democracy and human rights. We convene leading human rights scholars, policymakers, practitioners, and activists to produce cutting-edge interdisciplinary research, data-informed policy recommendations, and new public engagement and culture change strategies to promote the safety and security—and protect and advance the human rights—of LGBTQI+ people worldwide.
NEW: Research Cluster on Global Climate Policy
Faculty: Dustin Tingley (FAS, HKS), Joseph Aldy (HKS), Catherine Wolfram (MIT)
In collaboration with the Salata Institute and MIT
Addressing climate change requires global collective action, underpinned by international institutions, frameworks, and policies. However, current climate action is moving too slowly—due to unwieldy policy structures and obstacles presented by multipronged core missions, among other reasons. This research cluster aims to accelerate the pace and scale of climate action by identifying and developing new global policy initiatives that address the challenges at hand. We leverage experts across many fields at Harvard and MIT to generate policy ideas, galvanize action, and engage students and alumni toward a deeper understanding of international climate coordination.
Research Cluster on Business and Government: The Political Economy of Firms and States in a Changing World
Faculty: Alisha Holland (FAS), Gautam Nair (HKS), Meg Rithmire (HBS), Dani Rodrik (HKS)
When business is not part of the solution, it is frequently part of the problem. By better understanding the political economy of business-government relations in the contemporary world, we hope to provide new insights into how business influence can be a positive force for democracy and development. Our work thus focuses on several broad problems: strategies of business influence; firm responses to deglobalization; the politics of deindustrialization; and concentration, regulation, and technology. We aim to address these themes by bringing together a multidisciplinary group of scholars at all career stages to reexamine and revitalize the study of business and politics.
Research Cluster on Comparative Inequality and Inclusion
Faculty: Michèle Lamont (FAS)
How do we extend cultural membership to the greatest number in society? Gain a better understanding of the social and cultural processes behind recognition gaps? Determine how social scientists and policy makers can better respond to help make societies more inclusive? By bringing together academics from a variety of disciplines and institutions, the cluster fosters a research community that seeks to build up the systemic theory around inequality and recognition gaps and create sustained opportunities for cross-pollination of ideas. Cluster affiliates have studied a wide range of topics—including racism, xenophobia, homophobia, immigration, destigmatization, incorporation, citizenship, indigeneity, and more—across various national and transnational contexts.
Research Cluster on Global History
Faculty: Sven Beckert (FAS), Sugata Bose (FAS), Charlie Maier (FAS)
(2025–2026)
Global history is one of the leading new approaches in recent years that has helped to transform the study of the past. The contemporary trends summarized under the term “globalization” have lent urgency to research that examines historical processes, networks, identities, and events across the boundaries of the nation-states that traditionally served as the privileged framework for much of the discipline. Historians worldwide have contributed to exciting research on the trends that so many societies have undergone together. In the process, global history has drawn on the expertise of political scientists, sociologists, art historians, economists, anthropologists, and others. This research cluster was designed to build on and focus its faculty leadership in new directions for international study.
Research Cluster on Identity Politics: Addressing Ethnic and Religious Conflict
Faculty: Melani Cammett (FAS)
(on hiatus in 2025–2026; will return in 2026–2027)
Ethnic and sectarian conflict are on the rise across the world—or at least show few signs of abatement—making it urgent to understand why some communities develop norms and practices of toleration, achieve reconciliation, or resist the politicization of these identities. When intergroup tensions have ratcheted up, is it possible to mitigate the impact? Can a shared civic identity be (re)constructed in the wake of violence waged in the name of nationalism, ethnicity, or religion? This research cluster explores ways to improve intergroup relations in postconflict countries by bringing together a worldwide network of scholars that will draw on evidence from diverse global regions.