The Global Security and International Affairs program area draws on the expertise of a broad range of policymakers, practitioners, and scholars to foster knowledge and promote innovative and evidence-based policies to address crucial issues affecting the international community. Projects underway in this area engage with pressing strategic, development, and moral questions that underpin relations among people, communities, and states worldwide. Each initiative embraces a broad conception of security as the interaction among human, national, and global security imperatives. Project recommendations move beyond the idea of security as the absence of war toward higher aspirations of collective peace, development, and justice at all levels of society.

The Winter 2022 issue of Daedalus, "Creating a New Moral Political Economy," explores what it would take to develop an economy that promotes more equal footing across the polity, marketplace, and workplace. Daedalus is an open access publication and all 11 essays and 22 responses are online.

The class speakers at the Induction Ceremony explored several themes, including the value of curiosity and the unexpected; strategies to prevent scientific failures with harmful consequences; the role of the social sciences in addressing the urgent challenges of today; the processes of transformation and translation; and how openness fosters innovative and sustainable problem-solving. The ceremony featured presentations from theoretical astrophysicist Charles F. Gammie, research ecologist Helene Muller-Landau, lawyer and legal scholar Daniel E. Ho, writer and translator Jhumpa Lahiri, and economist and nonprofit leader Cecilia A. Conrad. An edited version of their presentations follows.

There is no resource more central to life on Earth than water. It is essential to the survival of people, organisms, and economies; its availability is inextricably linked to humanity’s need for security, energy, food, and community. The Summer 2015 issue of Dædalus moves beyond the failures of our tried approaches to water management.

Select Prizes and Awards to Members

Select Prizes and Awards to Members

While U.S. colleges struggle against broad disinvestment, institutions of higher education in many parts of the world have imagined ambitious new models of twenty-first-century education. From world-class public research universities to online and binational start-ups, the landscape of global higher education is shaped by ongoing experimentation and change. What have these approaches taught us? And what lessons can we apply to institutions in the United States?

How do we counter implicit bias in its individual and systemic manifestations? This question is explored in the Winter 2024 issue of Dædalus by leading scholars, scientists, and policy­makers who examine the science behind implicit bias—the residue of stereotyped associations and social patterns that exists outside our conscious awareness but reinforces inequality in the world.

Building on the Academy’s commitment to the vital role that education and knowledge development play in our nation and world, the program area engages scholars and practitioners from a range of fields and disciplines to inform policies and practices that support high-quality, educational opportunities for all Americans.

The Academy convened leaders from its Affiliates network for a candid, forward-looking discussion about how lessons learned from the disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic might inform the future of higher education. The event provided an opportunity for the participants – university presidents and chancellors, provosts, deans, faculty, and other administrators from over forty American colleges and universities – to gather, share ideas, and make sense of a challenging year.

Select Prizes and Awards to Members

As the United States approaches the 2024 presidential election, several journalists and commentators have been puzzled by one question: “Why do Americans seem so unhappy with an economy that appears to be doing so well?” Polls are influenced by many factors, but recent results show how pessimistic many Americans feel about the economy. And yet, judged by traditional economic metrics like the GDP or the Dow Jones, the economy is doing well. How do we explain this paradox?

Academy members and guests attended a matinee performance of Robert Glaudini's The Poison Tree, in its world premiere at the Mark Taper Forum. After the show, they adjourned to the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion for dinner and the Stated Meeting, presided over by Western Center Cochair Jack W. Peltason.

Wendy Freedman gives the remarks for Class I – Mathematical and Physical Sciences at the 2010 Induction ceremony.