Georgetown Global Futures Initiative
The world’s great universities have a special responsibility to address the global challenges that will shape humanity’s future. – Georgetown President John J. DeGioia
Global Futures was a university-wide collaboration designed to advance our educational mission in a swiftly changing world.
Beginning in January 2015, Global Futures invited members of the Georgetown community to undertake innovative teaching, research, and dialogue with world leaders in the public sector, business, and civil society around pressing global issues. The goal of the two-year initiative was to draw on Georgetown’s distinctive character—its strengths across academic disciplines, its Catholic and Jesuit identity, and its presence in Washington, DC—to develop the model of an engaged global university in service to the wider world.
The initiative was focused thematically over four semesters in 2015 and 2016. Each semester, Global Futures sponsored several headlining events, centered on the topics of global development, governance, security, and the environment. Around these and other events, faculty and students were invited to participate with colleagues worldwide in an online dialogue about security challenges in their practical and ethical dimensions.
Over the course of the initiative, the Global Futures Curriculum Studio, a collaboration with the Designing the Future(s) of the University initiative and the Center for New Designs in Learning and Scholarship, advanced curricular and co-curricular innovations to prepare students as citizens and leaders in an interdependent world.
In the research context, Global Futures seminars, workshops, and conferences highlighted faculty and student inquiry on global issues and provided opportunities for critical feedback from the Georgetown community and outside experts.
Learn more about Georgetown's global engagement.