This month, Strauss Center Distinguished Scholars Dr. Catherine Weaver and Dr. Michael Findley published the first annual report of Innovations for Peace and Development (IPD), the research program they co-founded in January 2013 housed at the University of Texas at Austin. IPD’s objective is to empower undergraduate and graduate students through research, internships, and fellowship opportunities that promote innovations in global peace and development. Thus far, 47 graduate and 87 undergraduate students have benefitted from the program. The complete report can be found here.
One of the research projects being undertaken by IPD’s team is an open-source platform for tracking and geo-mapping climate change. The platform was developed by IPD student researchers and piloted in collaboration with the Strauss Center’s Climate Change and African Political Stability Program (CCAPS). This platform has contributed to increasing transparency and accountability in global climate change financing. It has also shaped the reporting policies and practices of multilateral development banks (including the World Bank), and has informed the research agendas of organizations such as the World Resource Institute and Oxfam International. IPD and the Strauss Center are currently working on expanding this research to the South Asia region through the new program on Complex Emergencies and Political Stability in Asia.
IPD has also investigated the ways in which Geographical Information Systems (GIS) technology can be used to map the flow of international development aid. Dr. Findley and Dr. Weaver, assisted by UT students on the ground in Africa, were able to capture all donor aid distributed in Malawi on a sub-national level, creating the Open Aid Map for Malawi. This work will provide government decision-makers, aid donors, and civil society groups with critical information in an interactive format, improving the accountability and efficiency of aid. IPD continues to produce open-aid maps in Nepal, Haiti, Honduras, Senegal, Uganda, and (soon) the Democratic Republic of Congo, in partnership with CCAPS, AidData, and the World Bank Open Aid Partnership.
Over the next year, IPD aims to launch a fundraising campaign to supplement its federal grants and provide funds for paid student positions or stipends for conference participation, field research, and professional internships. Interested students are encouraged to contact IPD to get involved.
Strauss Center Distinguished Scholar Joshua Busby has been named the recipient of the 2026 Grawemeyer Award for Ideas Improving the World Order for scholarship presented in his 2022 book, "States and Nature: The Effects of Climate Change on Security." His work was based, in part, on his studies within Strauss Center programs on Complex Emergencies and Political Instability in Asia...
On April 21, Ashley Moran, director of the Strauss Center's State Fragility Initiative, spoke at an event briefing NATO on civil society working group recommendations on expanding NATO’s work to address the security risks from climate and environmental stress. The April 21 event was organized by NATO’s Policy Planning Unit and Emerging Security Challenges Division. It included remarks by several...
Professor Joshua Busby, Associate Professor of Public Affairs at the LBJ School and Strauss Center Distinguished Scholar, recently co-authored a piece for the World Economic Forum titled “The US needs partners to tackle the security risks of climate change.” The article begins by presenting three main arguments: that climate change imposes increasingly hazardous risks to “stability and security”; that the Biden...