Dear friends of FSI,
I am pleased to share our annual report for academic year 2021-2022, highlighting the breadth and depth of activities at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. For all of the energy and excitement we have enjoyed this last year, there are serious challenges facing our country and the world. Despite the heroic resistance of the Ukrainian army and people, Vladimir Putin and his soldiers continue their invasion of Ukraine. U.S.-China relations are growing increasingly confrontational. COVID tragically remains a global health crisis, and the war in Ukraine has exacerbated food security challenges far beyond the conflict zones. In spite of widespread concerns about the threat of interference and disruption, the November midterms in the U.S. showed the resiliency of our electoral process and the strength of American democracy. Understanding these complex issues and working to tackle these challenges is precisely why FSI exists. I thank all of our scholars, students, and staff for the dedication they have shown this last year in supporting the work we do here, and I am equally grateful to you and the community of donors whose gifts have made our work possible.
We had a truly remarkable year. In April, the Cyber Policy Center hosted Barack Obama for a landmark address on how disinformation is impacting our democracy. Just a few weeks later, it was FSI’s honor to host President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine for a live video address to our students and the Stanford community. In May, the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC) produced a major conference in honor of the 20th anniversary of the Korea Program, which brought together policy leaders, including former United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, and cultural icons like K-pop stars Soo-Man Lee and Suho. In November, the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) celebrated its 20th anniversary with a two-day event featuring panels and discussions with the center’s former and current directors as well as several of its many prominent scholars. And every center at FSI maintained a robust set of seminars, workshops, and meetings. After years of COVID, it felt almost normal!
Over the summer, years of work by our FSI colleagues Marshall Burke, David Lobell, Roz Naylor and many others came to fruition with the launch of the new Doerr School of Sustainability. This is a thrilling step in the right direction for climate change research and environmental studies at Stanford, and Marshall will lead the effort to develop the social science research program within the new school.
Over the past year, we have been able to grow the ranks of our faculty and to expand FSI’s programming in exciting new directions that would not have been possible without your generous financial support. Here are some highlights of our recent efforts:
- FSI is leading the International Working Group on Russian Sanctions, a team of independent international experts to recommend new economic sanctions and other measures to pressure Russian President Vladimir Putin to end his invasion of Ukraine as soon as possible and restore Ukraine’s territorial integrity.
- CDDRL welcomed the Deliberative Democracy Lab as a part of their research community. The Deliberative Democracy Lab (formerly the Center for Deliberative Democracy) is devoted to research about democracy and public opinion obtained through Deliberative Polling® and related democratic processes. James Fishkin (FSI Senior Fellow, CDDRL) will continue to serve as the Lab’s director alongside Alice Siu as associate director, now a senior research scholar at CDDRL.
- Peter Blair Henry, Stephen Kotkin, Margaret Levi, and Jennifer Pan also started at FSI as new senior fellows this fall. They are all superb researchers whose insights will greatly enrich our classrooms and the work of our centers.
- As part of their ongoing research with the new Department of Health Policy, the Center for Health Policy is emphasizing health equity as a key focus that will run through all research moving forward. A symposium on advancing health equity was held in October to discuss innovative policy work and ways to scale solutions across the board.
- Researchers at the Program on Energy and Sustainable Development (PESD) have worked with staff at the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) to develop policies to ensure reliability in California's electric grid system, even as the grid's share of intermittent wind and solar energy increases.
- Under the guidance of our faculty, the Honors graduates from CISAC and CDDRL have also done fantastic work this year on issues ranging from climate change and environmental policy to great power competition. I encourage everyone to look into their research.
FSI concluded another strong year providing research, mentorship, and policy analysis. We look forward to building on this success to add new areas of inquiry, to expand FSI’s teaching contributions at Stanford and to provide ongoing advice to policymakers on a variety of pressing challenges.
Finally, I was incredibly pleased to learn that in October, two organizations – the Center for Civil Liberties in Ukraine and Russia-based Memorial – led by former CDDRL fellows were recognized with this year's Nobel Peace Prize. Oleksandra Matviichuk, a 2018 Ukrainian Emerging Leaders fellow, is head of the Center for Civil Liberties in Ukraine. Anna Dobrovolskaya and Tonya Lokshina, who were Draper Hills Summer Fellows in 2019 and 2005, led Russia-based Memorial before it was forced to close by the Russian government in December 2021. These prizes are a stunning testament to their work to protect human rights. We are proud of the role that CDDRL played in training these leaders and supporting their critical work.
Read on to learn more about the concrete impact we have made with your support. Included below, you will find links to our faculty output as well as our Master’s in International Policy (MIP) website.
We thank you for your engagement with FSI and extend our best wishes for 2023.
Sincerely,
Michael McFaul
Senior Fellow and Director, FSI
Ken Olivier and Angela Nomellini Professor of International Studies, Department of Political Science
Peter and Helen Bing Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution
