Research that connects economic analysis, political dynamics and security questions to better understand global change.
Expanding Our Impact
The launch of the Watson School marks a pivotal opportunity to expand international and public affairs at Brown while advancing the School’s mission to address the world’s most pressing policy challenges.
Expanding Our Impact
The launch of the Watson School marks a pivotal opportunity to expand international and public affairs at Brown while advancing the School’s mission to address the world’s most pressing policy challenges.
Guiding Principles for Growth
Our Five-Year Strategy
The Watson School is building on its distinctive strengths through an ambitious five-year strategy to grow its faculty, strengthen its academic programs and deepen its contributions to public policy. The School plans to significantly increase its research and teaching capacity in areas central to its mission of creating a more just, peaceful and prosperous world.
This growth will bring faculty expertise, academic programs and public engagement into closer alignment around pressing economic, political and social policy challenges. The Watson School is deeply connected with other schools at Brown, and our approach builds on this strength by supporting work across traditional disciplinary boundaries and attracting scholars whose impact stretches beyond the academic literature to engage with practical realities that shape policy. For students, policymakers and communities, this means more opportunities to learn from, contribute to and apply the School’s research and expertise.
Strategic priorities include:
- Growing the faculty
- Expanding research capacity
- Strengthening policy education
- Deepening public engagement
Collaboration across departments and disciplines at Brown University enables the Watson School to combine multiple approaches to address complex global challenges.
Research and teaching that connect directly to real-world policy problems and communities.
Faculty expertise is deeply integrated into the School’s academic programs, research initiatives, and student learning opportunities.
Expanding Our Footprint
The Watson School will pursue significant growth to advance its research and educational mission. We will double the number of faculty, in large part by expanding into new issue areas and disciplines beyond the traditional social sciences. We will triple the extent of research and policy engagement through the establishment of new centers, and we will expand fellowship support so that students from all backgrounds can attend the Watson School.
Strategic Growth at Watson - 5 Year Goals
2x
GOAL OF DOUBLING FACULTY AND PRACTICTIONERS
3x
INCREASE IN RESEARCH AND POLICY ENGAGEMENT
5x
EXPANDED FELLOWSHIPS FOR MPA STUDENTS
“ This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to grow the school around forward-looking ideas and to reframe our education in an innovative way as we work to build one of the world’s leading policy schools. ”
Research & Policy Impact
Alongside the five core areas of research outlined below, the cross-cutting themes of climate change and inequality will shape work across the Watson School. These complex global challenges require insights from across traditional academic boundaries and policy perspectives.
Five Core Areas of Focus
Research on the policies, institutions and global forces that shape development, opportunity and well-being.
Research on rights, democracy and the systems that shape justice, accountability and civic life.
Research on the policies and systems that shape economic opportunity, social well-being and public life.
Research in technology and policy examines how emerging technologies are reshaping governance, public services, and civic life. It explores both the policies that govern innovation and the ways tools such as AI are transforming what governments and institutions can do.
These areas reflect the current strengths of the Watson School faculty and draw on the broader Brown community of researchers in policy-relevant areas. The School will deepen research in these areas and connect it more closely with teaching and policy practice through:
Expanded Faculty
The Watson School will enhance research and teaching by drawing on diverse disciplines and approaches, expanding expertise beyond the traditional social sciences.
Collaboration Across Traditional Academic Boundaries
The Watson School will expand opportunities for collaboration across Brown and beyond—leveraging diverse ideas, perspectives and experiences to produce research that is more innovative, more connected and more impactful in the world.
Expanded Research Opportunities
New centers will align with core areas to invigorate research, contribute to policy debates, and increase public engagement.
Integrated Teaching and Research
Courses and policy labs that weave together theory, research, and experiential opportunities will support student-driven learning and skills development.
Teaching
Growing Education and Academic Programs
The Watson School is dedicated to creating policy-focused learning experiences that train students to change systems and societies for the better. We do this with an integrated approach to teaching, which transcends traditional academic boundaries, and a commitment to a diversity of ideas, perspectives and experiences.
Building on the program’s strengths, the Watson School will expand the MPA’s global focus and align its curriculum more closely with existing faculty expertise and planned faculty growth. Beginning in 2026-27, students can pursue five newly designed tracks:
- Climate Change and the Environment
- Global Security
- International Development
- International Economics
- Social and Economic Policy
As the program evolves, it will strengthen connections among policy-focused coursework, experiential learning and opportunities for students to engage with faculty research.
Welcoming its first cohort in January 2027, the fully online Master of Public Policy program will make a rigorous Watson School policy education accessible to working professionals while they continue their careers. The 16-month program will combine flexible online learning with virtual engagement, helping students apply policy analysis, evidence-based decision-making and leadership skills to challenges in their organizations and communities. Students will connect with the School’s faculty expertise, research and policy community, bringing insights from their professional experience into their learning.
The Watson Predoctoral Affiliates program connects doctoral students across Brown with the Watson School’s research community. As the School grows, a priority will be to bring doctoral students into closer conversation with faculty, practitioners and postdoctoral fellows across its core research areas and help train the next generation of policy-focused researchers. Research seminars, centers and initiatives provide settings for fellows to develop their scholarship, exchange ideas across traditional academic boundaries and explore the policy implications of their work.
The International and Public Affairs concentration remains a cornerstone of the Watson School, and undergraduate teaching will continue to be a core priority as the School grows. Building on the concentration’s existing structure, faculty growth will create opportunities to connect students more closely with research and policy expertise across its Development, Policy and Governance, and Security tracks. Centers, initiatives and policy labs offer additional settings for connecting undergraduate learning with the School’s research and public engagement.
Public Engagement
Community Engagement and Policy Practice
Through this next phase of growth, the Watson School is deepening its role as a hub for applied policy work—building new ways to engage policymakers, practitioners and communities at local, national and global levels.
Key areas of growth include:
Momentum
The Watson School is building on strong momentum as it advances a strategic plan designed to expand its impact at Brown and in the world.
Across research, teaching and public engagement, the Watson community is advancing new ideas, expanding opportunities for students and connecting scholarship to pressing policy challenges. Together, these efforts are shaping the School’s next phase of growth.
Explore some of the ways the Watson community is already bringing the plan to life.