Columbia World Projects’ (CWP) research and engagement team convenes working groups where scholars and practitioners engage with our most pressing social issues and identify pathways to better futures.
The team assembles researchers from across Columbia and other universities who are committed to enacting thoughtful change together with professionals from government, foundations, business, civil society, and local communities, with particular emphasis on Harlem, home of Columbia’s Manhattanville campus and CWP.
The CWP research and engagement team creates enduring networks that bring Columbia faculty and professionals from outside of the university together to confront difficult problems that a single discipline or approach could not successfully address.
The research and engagement team is currently working on two pressing topics of enormous global consequence. The first is an analysis of the crisis in liberal democracies throughout the world. This crisis is especially evident in the capacity of democratic political institutions to address our most complex problems, including finding solutions to climate change, inequality, and systematic political exclusion.
The second topic is how to shape more inclusive cities in an era of intensifying urbanization and stark inequality. In the coming months, CWP will launch a third major initiative on implementation — the transformation of knowledge into action.
Learn about our current work in these areas: