Wilson Center Mission Statement

"...such a Center, symbolizing and strengthening the fruitful relations between the world of learning and world of public affairs, would be a suitable memorial to the spirit of Woodrow Wilson..." (PL 90-637)

The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars aims to unite the world of ideas to the world of policy by supporting pre-eminent scholarship and linking that scholarship to issues of concern to officials in Washington.

Congress established the Center in 1968 as the official, national memorial to President Wilson. Unlike the physical monuments in the nation's capital, it is a living memorial whose work and scholarship commemorates "the ideals and concerns of Woodrow Wilson." As both a distinguished scholar and national leader, President Wilson felt strongly that the scholar and the policymaker were "engaged in a common enterprise". Today the Center takes seriously his views on the need to bridge the gap between the world of ideas and the world of policy, bringing them into creative contact, enriching the work of both, and enabling each to learn from the other.

Consistent with this mandate:

–The Center brings the highest quality thinkers to Washington D.C. for extended periods of time to pursue projects in a place and atmosphere in which they interact with the world of public affairs.

–The Center's outreach emphasizes contacts between scholars and public officials in Congress and the Executive Branch, and it extends their conversations worldwide through publishing, broadcasting, and Internet programs.

–The Center aims to be policy relevant. It brings in broad-ranging scholars and leading thinkers whose work can illuminate the key public policy issues or identify overlooked or emerging issues.

–The Center provides a forum for research and discourse through a number of programs and projects, with a particular strength in international affairs, a reflection of President Wilson's strong advocacy of international understanding.

–The Center is nonpartisan. It is not an advocacy think tank developing specific policy recommendations, but a nonpartisan center for advanced study, a neutral forum for free and open, serious, and informed scholarship and discussion.

–The Center tries, in a city preoccupied with immediate policy concerns, to separate the important from the inconsequential, and to take a broader perspective to the issues, putting them into their larger context, taking the longer-term view.

The Wilson Center is an intellectually lively place. It brings together influential thinkers and doers to engage in a dialogue on current and future public policy challenges, with the confident hope that through such discussions there will emerge better understanding and better policy. Providing a bridge between the worlds of learning and public affairs, the Center is located in the Ronald Reagan Building in the heart of Washington D.C., a city that is at the center of the world of public affairs today.