Latest News and Events
Fall Welcome Reception
Join us on Wednesday, October 14th from 4-6pm for the Pardee Center's 2026 Fall Welcome Reception! Bring the new academic year into focus as we gather with Pardee Center colleagues, students, faculty, staff, and friends for an afternoon of conversation, community, and refreshments. The reception will also feature Lightning Talks from our 2026 Graduate Summer Fellows who will share highlights from their summer research in a series of engaging presentations. Come learn about the diverse topics... More
Urban Innovations from Latin America
Latin American cities are among the most violent and unequal in the world. This double threat underlies the rise of innovative urban initiatives seeking to redress both in and through the urban landscape—aerial cable cars to connect impoverished hilly margins and city centers; care blocks to make basic services accessible to disenfranchised caregivers; pocket parks to build public space in autoconstructed communities where there was none; participatory systems for residents to decide on budgets, public... More
M-Pesa: From Fintech Inventor to the Status Quo
Join the Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future and the Global Development Policy Center for a seminar examining the evolution of M-Pesa from the pioneer fintech leader into a rigid status quo defined by market dominance and institutional hubris. We'll review the platform's transition into a bureaucratic incumbent and government-aligned gatekeeper, utilizing its position for economic rent extraction while acting as a systemic bottleneck that is slow to adopt consumer-facing technologies. The... More
Announcing the 2026-27 Non-Resident Global Health Politics Fellows
The Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future is pleased to announce its 2026-27 Global Health Politics Fellows. The distinguished group of Non-Resident Fellows were selected by the Global Health Politics Workshop's (GHPW) Steering Committee. Fellows will participate in GHPW events throughout the course of the academic year and receive feedback and mentorship from a Steering Committee member on a research paper in the field of global health politics. Meet the 2026-27 Global... More
Chinese Industrial Parks in South East Asia: Who is Building Them and Why?
Beginning in the early 1990s—well before the Belt and Road Initiative—Beijing encouraged Chinese firms, both state-owned and private, to “Go Out/Go Global” (走出去). Research shows many companies responded, but we still know little about how they choose where to go and where they settle within host countries. Do firms from the same Chinese locality co-locate abroad? Do they cluster by sector—and if so, through what mechanisms? Through this talk Jean Oi will present preliminary findings that... More