This is part four of six in which Director Michael McFaul talks about his vision for the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, the accomplishments he's most proud of so far, and why he keeps returning to the Farm.

FSI isn’t the world’s largest policy think tank but we offer a generous home, not just to our community but to some of the foremost experts on international affairs in the world today. I don’t think people realize just how big, and how much intellectual firepower we have. There are over 50 tenured faculty here, 150 researchers, and about $50 million in annual revenue, and all those numbers continue to grow.

My friends in D.C. should know that FSI is a premier policy institute comparable to any of the biggest think tanks in Washington, but we’re actually much more diverse in terms of the topics we tackle – we have people working on global health, cyber policy, food security and the environment, in addition to regional focuses, democracy development and rule of law, and many others. And actively training the policy makers of the future is a core part of our mission.

Of course, when it comes to policy impact it’s about implementation. It's not good enough to have an idea about policy. You've got to find somebody in the policy world that might be interested in listening to you. Then they have to try to implement it in what we recognize is a very complex policy environment.

In the next five years, as I move forward, we’ll pursue a diversified strategy for how we push our ideas into the policy world. There are multiple modalities for doing that. Sometimes it means being on TV, sometime it means joining the government. When FSI people join the government, they take all their intellectual ideas with them when they show up at the Pentagon, or the White House or the State Department.

But in between those two extremes, one being very ephemeral and one being much more concrete, there are all kinds of different ways of trying to shape the policy environment. I want to make sure that we're focused on policy makers, but also societal attitudes more broadly. I think it needs to be both, and we will not achieve progress on our policy goals if we don't have a multi-pronged approach.

There is a benefit to studying policy here at Stanford – it affords us a unique perspective because of the distance from D.C., and allows us to take a longer view on current world affairs. We’re now building the bridges to ensure our research will flow naturally to policy professionals wherever they are in the world.

Read part five in this series, Impact Through Education, or return to the Meet the Director page.

This is part three of six in which Director Michael McFaul talks about his vision for the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, the accomplishments he's most proud of so far, and why he keeps returning to the Farm.

At our core we are a research institute. I never lose sight of that and am always looking to expand our interdisciplinary research. FSI is home to eight centers and a growing number of specialized research programs and initiatives. Since starting as director five years ago, we’ve kicked off initiatives focused on European security as well as Asia, the Middle East and cyber security. We’ve developed research strengths in these regions where we didn’t have them before. And a regional orientation for research will continue to be relevant as the world around us continues to reshape itself.

The rising importance of China certainly calls for our attention. We have a lot of depth on China here at FSI and at the university, but we need more, particularly around the U.S.-China bilateral relationship. I’d like to see us offer more courses on U.S.-China relations and the Chinese economy. These are complicated subjects and the data we have on them are not great. What’s more, they touch on a whole set of topics related to U.S.-China competition in high-tech, including the race to artificial intelligence and the development of cyber weapons.

Of course, my plans are only worth as much as the people we are able to attract. Our research centers each require academic leadership, and making sure we're hiring new people or attracting people from the university to lead the centers is crucial to the future of FSI. That's the highest priority. Thankfully we’re off to a terrific start. We’ve hired an incredibly diverse group of new scholars recently, and their expertise and perspectives are invaluable. I’m thinking of Francis Fukuyama, Anna Grzymala-Busse, Oriana Skylar Mastro and many others.

You really can't do anything at a place like FSI without talented people. You can have all the great ideas you want. If you don't have the warm bodies to actually do them, it doesn't matter. If you don't create the permissive conditions for academics to do the work that they want to do, you can't tell them what to do. That's how my job today is different than my job as the US ambassador.

When I was the ambassador, most people would listen to me and would do what I'd say, because everybody knew I was the boss. They would open the door for me when I would come down into the office. They would all say, "Mr. Ambassador." That's not the way it works at the university. Instead of saying, "Here's my vision, now you guys go do it," you've got to create the vision from what people want to do already. Getting that right is the highest priority for the next five years, especially as we develop leadership for the future.

I’m proud of launching a new research center recently, the Cyber Policy Center. This center brings together the various programs and people throughout the university working on what I think are the core challenges for security, development and governance of our time. The fourth floor of Encina Hall has been transformed to integrate their work here, which will be instrumental in creating the necessary bridges between D.C. and Silicon Valley, and the technology and policy arenas.

Another new initiative that I’m proud of, on global populism, is demonstrating the growth of social polarization around the globe, including right here in America. This trend makes public policy discussions privileged opinion and demotes data and evidence. We need to fight back on that. Policy decisions made with data behind it are better than ones that are made with just intuition or opinion behind it.

Especially in periods of polarization it's incumbent upon places like FSI to be committed to getting their scientific research into the public policy domains. That all said, it's not enough just to do your research and wait for the President of the United States to give you a call to ask you about your research.

We have to be creative, nimble and innovative about how we get our ideas, based on data, evidence and research into the public policy domain. And it’s a two-way street. The public and those in the policy world need to be more willing to listen to data and accept policy reforms based on data.

Read part four in this series, Making a Policy Impact, or return to the Meet the Director page.

This is part two of six in which Director Michael McFaul talks about his vision for the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, the accomplishments he's most proud of so far, and why he keeps returning to the Farm.

When a student connects with us, they realize right away what a dynamic environment it is here in Encina Hall. There is so much happening and you see it as you go from floor to floor. You can attend an event on cybersecurity in the morning, a lunchtime seminar on Russia’s economy, and an evening talk about Middle East politics. There is an invigorating energy moving throughout each floor.

Encina Hall is an energizing space where we convene events for student and faculty, but also welcome the broader community. People will line up around the building an hour ahead of an event just to make sure they get a good seat. We are proud to be the hosts for such a broad and diverse community, and are able to offer one of the most beautiful and historic event spaces on campus. We’ve welcomed some incredible guests recently, including Hillary Clinton, Mateo Renzi, Susan Rice and Ash Carter, to name a few, not to mention the events featuring our own experts.

And we just completed a newly constructed courtyard where we can gather the community in a special outdoor and idyllic setting. We’re glad you’re here, even if you’re standing in the back or watching the livestream of an event in the overflow rooms. It’s humbling to see all the people who are drawn to the intellectual momentum here.

Read part three in this series, Research Is At Our Core, or return to the Meet the Director page.

This is part one of six in which Director Michael McFaul talks about his vision for the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, the accomplishments he's most proud of so far, and why he keeps returning to the Farm.

I showed up at Stanford as a 17-year-old kid animated by this idea that if we didn't figure out a way to get along with the Soviet Union, we might blow up the planet.

My freshman year I took first-year Russian. I also took PolySci 35, How Nationals Deal with Each Other, taught by Steven Krasner, who incidentally taught that course last fall to my son.

But I felt like I didn’t belong at Stanford at the time. My SAT scores weren’t great and I didn’t have straight A’s in high school. I was fortunate to be taken in by world-renowned scholars, like Alexander George, Alexander Dallin, and Jan Triska.

They were experts in their fields but also using their research to make the world a safer place. Dallin sought to understand the Soviets better. George focused on crisis management and how to manage the U.S.-Soviet rivalry. And Triska was an expert on communist Eastern Europe.

They nurtured me, and demonstrated a deep commitment to teaching, and mentoring undergraduates, but also applying their knowledge to the outside world. That’s what we continue to do with the undergraduates who sign up for one of FSI’s many programs today, whether it’s an internship, grant, or research position.

Undergraduates should know there is a smorgasbord of interesting ideas, programs, research centers, and faculty here that they may not encounter in their day-to-day classes. We are sitting right at the center of campus, in Encina Hall, and yet I meet too many undergraduates that don’t discover FSI and all we have to offer until their senior year.

Students benefit from thinking about their education not only as the regular coursework that they do for their major. There's so much learning that takes place outside of that convention. There are so many learning and research opportunities at FSI, but you have to engage with it. You have to find it and connect with it. Then we’ll show you how to apply your knowledge to make a difference in the world.

Read part two in this series, Our Intellectual Momentum, or return to the Meet the Director page.

Countries retreating into closed systems and deciding to protect only their own groups could prevent international cooperation on climate change issues which is the only way to avert climate catastrophe, says Francis Fukuyama in conversation with Ana Kasparian. Watch here.

"Democrats don’t need to peddle in falsehood or invective to find lively and creative ways to communicate their message of hope, inspiration, and concrete policy alternatives, and to do so with passion and conviction," writes Larry Diamond in The American Interest. Read here.