Letter from the Director | Fall 2004
Newsletter Launch
Welcome to the first of what we hope will be many newsletters featuring research and events at ISERP. As our fifth year comes to a close, I am struck by how much we have grown. In 1998, when ISERP was ISETR, we were a pretty good idea but not much more. We had three offices, an outpost on the fifth floor, a director, little money, very little grant activity, and one staff member. Since then, we have expanded on the eighth floor, and to the second and third floors, created a solid infrastructural base, and garnered wider faculty involvement across the social sciences in ISERP projects and programs.
Much has happened this year. David Krantz and Elke Weber led a large team to bring a new NSF-funded Center for Research on Environmental Decisions, featured in this issue. This year also saw the implementation of a new NSF-funded interdisciplinary training program in international development and globalization (known as IGERT-IDG) directed by Joseph Stiglitz. The program's interdisciplinary curriculum incorporates perspectives from fields including economics, political science, sociology, and urban planning, and will be coordinated with the new Sustainable Development PhD program at the School of International and Public Affairs. The first cohort of IGERT-IDG students began study this fall.
ISERP continues to pursue collaborations with other schools and institutions within the University. The Institute has been an active member of the GIS Working Group, a campus-wide group promoting geographic information systems (GIS) analysis at Columbia, also featured in this issue. Directed by Elliott Sclar, this working group received an Academic Quality Fund grant this year from the University to develop infrastructure and integrate spatial perspectives into social science teaching and research.
Reflecting a wide array of research and training projects, the Institute's grant portfolio continued its trajectory of vigorous growth. Nearly $6.5 million in grants was awarded to ISERP-based projects in 2003-04, an increase of 60 percent over the previous year. This portfolio includes both the major projects described above as well as a rich variety of research and policy projects mounted by social science faculty both individually and in ISERP's research centers and project groups.
ISERP-based faculty also continue a pattern of public engagement. New funding from the United Nations Development Programme supports the public forums on international development held by Joseph Stiglitz's Initiative for Policy Dialogue. The Institute received $750,000 this year from the American Legacy Foundation to commission research on the social and economic consequences of tobacco control policy for a broad range of sectors and stakeholders. ISERP affiliated research has been identified in more than 250 news stories this year alone.
In the coming year, ISERP faces significant opportunities as well as risks. We hope to complete a major overhaul of our computational system, now almost four years old, and we anticipate major restructuring of our 8th floor space. ISERP is currently significantly expanding our communication infrastructure so that we are better positioned to project into the public domain the remarkable work that is going on at Columbia. ISERP also anticipates launching two major new initiatives. The first focuses on the intersection of HIV and security risk, in conjunction with the London School of Economics. The second focuses on the development of a New York Area Study focused on issues of population health, building from strengths in urban policy and research, GIS infrastructure, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health & Society Scholars Program. I look forward to this coming year and all the new research, projects, ideas, and faces we will see at ISERP and invite you to stop by and learn more.
Peter Bearman, Director
Institute of Social and Economic
Research and Policy
