Linked with Isabelle Werenfels – Germany.
The Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP), Research Institute for International Affairs, with its more than 130 employees, is the largest research institute on international politics and security in Western Europe. Its primary function is to act in an advisory capacity to the federal government and the German Parliament (Bundestag) on foreign and security policy issues. Though funded by federal budget appropriations, the institute’s research is conducted independently, without direct government supervision or control.
The SWP was established in 1962. Under its founding director Klaus Ritter it acquired a reputation for its publications and conferences on arms control and security issues, subjects of special interest during the Cold War. Topics such as the transition in Russia and Eastern Europe, the new role of Western institutions and questions related to the new global order have since been added to the research agenda.
Since 1998, Christoph Bertram, a former director of the London based International Institute for Strategic Studies and a longstanding senior editor of the German weekly Die Zeit, has been the director of SWP.
Activities: Research and its related advisory functions are only part of the dialogue between social science and politics. In view of the increasing global interconnections of issues, the institute has actively been engaged in international exchange on politics and international relations. In addition to its various publications of research results in academic journals and books, the institute organises up to one hundred international conferences, workshops and colloquies a year.
Research at SWP is organised in eight units:
- 1. European Integration;
- 2. European External Relations;
- 3. European and Atlantic Security;
- 4. The Americas;
- 5. Russian Federation / CIS;
- 6. Middle East and Africa;
- 7. Asia;
- 8. Global Issues.
(Read all about on EuroMeSCo.net).