About FPRI

Mission

Founded in 1955, FPRI is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization devoted to bringing the insights of scholarship to bear on the development of policies that advance U.S. national interests. We add perspective to events by fitting them into the larger historical and cultural context of international politics.

Who We Are

The 82 affiliated scholars of FPRI include a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian, a former president of Swarthmore College, a Bancroft Prize-winning historian, and a former Ambassador and senior staff member of the National Security Council. We count among our trustees a former Undersecretary of Defense, a former Secretary of the Navy, a former Assistant Secretary of State, a foundation president, and numerous active or retired corporate CEOs, lawyers, and civic leaders. Our Inter-University Study Groups and our larger network of scholars include representatives of diverse disciplines, including political science, history, economics, law, management, religion, sociology, and psychology.

What We Do

We conduct research on pressing issues— the war on terrorism, developments in the Middle East, nuclear proliferation, relations with China, Russia, and Japan— and long-term questions, such as the roles of religion and ethnicity in international politics, or the nature of Western identity and its implications for the U.S. and the Atlantic Alliance.

We publish a quarterly journal, Orbis, and a series of bulletins, both of which draw on the research findings of our scholars, our Inter-University Study Groups, our conferences, and our seminars.

And, through our Wachman Center and through our History Institute, we educate the public and “teach the teachers.” In this way, we serve the community and the nation, the policymakers and the educators.

A Vast Reach

Each week, FPRI transmits by email a succinct analysis of some critical international issue. These bulletins are emailed to some 18,000 key people in 85 countries directly, and reach thousands more indirectly by postings on the Internet. Frequently, they are reprinted in or quoted by newspapers around the world. Our scholars are also invited to testify on Capitol Hill, comment on national radio and television, and consult informally with U.S. government officials.

Does It Matter?

It matters to the policymaker, who lacks the time to give serious reflection to long-term trends that will shape America’s choices abroad; it matters to the media, who miss the expertise to make sense of complex developments in foreign lands; it matters to the educator, who needs informed preparation to teach the next generation (and to the students, who represent the next generation of American leadership); and it matters to the public, whose children will be sent off to war and whose taxes will pay the bills. As FPRI founder Robert Strausz-Hupé once said, “a nation must think before it acts,” and that is where FPRI makes its mark.

Download FPRI Fact Sheet. (2 pages, 190K )

FPRI Wishes to Thank its 2011 Partners
Who help make all our programs possible.

On November 15th at the FPRI annual dinner Fouad Ajami was presented with the Seventh Annual Benjamin Franklin Public Service Award. The event was attended by over 360 people.
Dr. John M. Templeton, Jr. was dinner chairman.