Our Community

The Pardee Center operates as a network of collaborators that include scholars at Boston University as well as partners beyond the University.

Since it was founded in 2000, three prominent scholars have served as Director of The Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future, and one has served as Director ad interim.

In addition to its staff, the Pardee Center convenes an expanding network of Faculty Research Fellows from across BU through seed funding for projects that address the Center’s research interests, emphasize collaborations across disciplines, and have practical implications for forward-looking policy and decision-making. Post-doctoral Associates also make substantive contributions to the Center’s research agenda by supporting ongoing programs and initiating their own. Both Faculty Research Fellows and Post-doctoral Associates lead Center activities based on their research, including seminars, conferences, workshops, and publications.

Visiting Fellows work on Pardee Center research and activities, either in residence at the Center or within their own departments/institutions. In addition, Pardee Center Faculty Associates are BU faculty members who support our mission through participation in the Center’s various activities and programs. The Center also has a tradition of inviting Visiting Professors for short periods of time to be in residence for research, lectures, and symposia.

Finally, every summer the Center hosts its Graduate Summer Fellows Program, which provides an opportunity for Boston University doctoral and master’s students from various departments, schools, and colleges to undertake research on topics that are aligned with the Center’s broad research interests. This intensive 10-week program trains the next generation of interdisciplinary scholars in the skills needed to collaborate across disciplines and to communicate scholarly research to audiences with varied backgrounds and beyond academia. The Summer Fellows complete individual research papers by the end of the program that are considered for the Center’s publication series.