The International Leadership Center (ILC)
The International Leadership Center (ILC) develops and supports innovative, effective, and adaptive leaders to address the most acute and complex challenges facing the world.
It provides exceptional rising leaders from government, the private sector, and civil society with opportunities to deepen and broaden their knowledge, skills, and networks and to access world-leading research, scholars, and practitioners.
The ILC helps leaders make sense of our world and supports them to make positive changes through sharing experience, creating a space for exploring and learning, and the development of networks.
This unique center—established in the twenty-first year of the twenty-first century—promotes inclusive and international collaboration and is dedicated to harnessing its network for the local and global good.
Fellowships within the ILC
Emerging Climate Leaders Fellowship
The Yale Emerging Climate Leaders Fellowship offers an opportunity for sixteen young climate and clean energy practitioners from across the Global South to broaden their technical skills, deepen their professional networks, and exchange views with top global clean energy and climate change leaders. This new eight-month, three-part initiative is based in Yale’s International Leadership Center, with partnerships throughout the University. For more information about this fellowship, please visit https://jackson.yale.edu/international-leadership-center/climate.
Maurice R. Greenberg World Fellows Program
The Maurice R. Greenberg World Fellows Program selects international leaders from different places, backgrounds, and disciplines and who are committed to making the world a better place to spend a term in residence together at Yale to grow intellectually, share knowledge, strengthen skills, and expand networks.
Petraeus-Recanati-Kaplan (PRK) Fellowship
The PRK Fellowship enables experienced, carefully selected military special operators to gain a deeper understanding of global affairs; to engage intellectually with different perspectives; to develop relationships with future leaders across the diplomatic, development, defense, and civil society communities; and to expand international networks in order to deliver more comprehensive responses to global challenges. The Fellows study for a one-year Master of Advanced Study in Global Affairs at the Jackson School of Global Affairs.
International Security Studies (ISS)
International Security Studies is the preeminent research program for advancing the field of security studies, training a vast number of exceptional scholars and practitioners.
Through its convening power and unique interdisciplinary approach, ISS brings together faculty from across the University who work on issues of international security, especially at the nexus of history and political science. ISS supports faculty and student research; awards pre- and post-doctoral fellowships to visiting scholars; and organizes a wide range of conferences, workshops, and other symposia, enriching the Yale community.
Founded in 1988, ISS became a part of the Jackson Institute for Global Affairs in October 2021.
Programs within ISS
The Johnson Center for the Study of American Diplomacy
The Johnson Center for the Study of American Diplomacy was established in 2011, shortly after Dr. Henry A. Kissinger donated his papers to Yale University. The Johnson Center encourages research and teaching on United States foreign policy by drawing on the Kissinger papers as well as other important Yale library collections in this field. The Johnson Center brings prominent statesmen to campus as Kissinger Senior Fellows and hosts Kissinger Visiting Scholars who are researching and writing about the history of American diplomacy. The Center hosts an annual conference and other events that convene practitioners and scholars from around the world to discuss contemporary issues in international affairs.
The Schmidt Program on Artificial Intelligence (AI), Emerging Technologies, and National Power
The Schmidt Program on Artificial Intelligence, Emerging Technologies, and National Power fosters research and teaching that spans the disciplines of computer science, data science, economics, engineering, history, international relations, law, philosophy, physics, and political science.
The program examines how artificial intelligence has the potential to alter the fundamental building blocks of world order. It is a hub for scholars and practitioners working across disciplines on the technological and strategic transformations that are reshaping our world.
The Maritime and Naval Studies Project
The ISS Maritime and Naval Studies Project convenes leading academics and practitioners to analyze lessons from naval history and the precarious state of maritime affairs today.
The America, China, and Eurasia Project
This ISS project combines the study of history with current policy analysis to further understand Russian goals vis-à-vis Eurasia, as well as Chinese intentions with regards to the Indo-Pacific region.
Brady-Johnson Program in Grand Strategy and International Security Studies
International Security Studies first launched the Grand Strategy Program in 2000, founded by Professors John Lewis Gaddis and Paul Kennedy, along with the late Diplomat-in-Residence Charles Hill. The program was most recently led by Professor Beverly Gage, and now Michael Brenes serves as the Interim Director.
Michael Brenes is supported by an advisory board of faculty from across Yale, chaired by the ISS Director, Professor Arne Westad. The current GS student cohort consists of twenty-three students, mostly undergraduates with majors ranging from history and economics to philosophy and biology. They study a varied curriculum, emphasizing classic texts in strategy as well as large-scale, long-term strategic challenges of statecraft, politics, and social change.
ISS Fellowships:
- Predoctoral Fellowships
- Brady-Johnson Predoctoral Fellowships
- Henry A. Kissinger Predoctoral Fellowships
- Postdoctoral Fellowships
- The Henry Chauncey ’57 Postdoctoral Fellowships
- Henry A. Kissinger Visiting Scholars Program
- The Kenneth R. Miller, Jr. Fellowship
- ISS Marine Corps Fellowship
The Kerry Initiative
The Kerry Initiative is an interdisciplinary program that focuses on pressing global challenges through teaching, research, practicums, conferences, and international dialogue. It was founded in 2017 by former Secretary of State and now President Biden’s Presidential Climate Envoy John Kerry ’66. Through the Kerry Fellows Program, Yale undergraduate, graduate, and professional students collaborate with U.S. policymakers on leading-edge research and high-profile publications for a global audience.
Leitner Program on Effective Democratic Governance
The Leitner Program on Effective Democratic Governance looks into what aspects of democracy (or autocracy), law, and social arrangements affect economic growth and other indicators of economic performance and by what mechanisms. The project also aims to understand the dynamics behind better and worse forms of democratic institutions from the standpoint of long-term growth and prosperity, and the demographic, technological, and political forces that push governments towards good and bad forms.