Director of Studies
Main responsibilities: As Director of Studies of the IISS, Adam Ward is responsible for the organisation and execution of the Institute’s worldwide research activities, including setting priorities, raising funds, the management of senior fellows and junior researchers, and related tasks including the organisation of the annual IISS Global Strategic Review conference. He represents the Institute internationally, engaging all principal consumers of policy-relevant analysis and factual data produced by the IISS: governments, international organisations, strategists, the media and business.
Prior to taking up this post in March 2009, Adam Ward was from January 2006 the Executive Director of the IISS-US office in Washington DC. During his tenure in Washington, he oversaw the relocation of the office to larger premises, an expansion in its staff, the development of a busy events programme and research activities, and acted as the Institute’s principal liaison with US government agencies and the Washington-based diplomatic and strategic studies community.
Prior to this, he served from 2001 simultaneously as the IISS Senior Fellow for East Asian Security and Editor of Strategic Comments, the Institute’s monthly journal.
Background: Before joining the IISS he was from 1997 an analyst and editor at the consulting firm Oxford Analytica, specializing in the economics, politics and diplomacy of the Asia-Pacific region. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in German and Politics and an MA in International Relations, both from the University of Warwick, and also studied for one academic year at the University of Salzburg in Austria.
Date joined IISS: March 2001
Contact: Click here to contact Adam Ward
Recent articles: 'Living With Ambiguity: North Korea's Strategic Weapons Programmes' with Gary Samore, in Smith, Hazel (ed) Reconstituting Korean Security (Tokyo: United Nations University Press, 2007)
