Young Strategists Programme

IISS-SAIS Merrill Center Young Strategists Programme in Security & Geo-economics

The International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), in partnership with the Philip Merrill Center for Strategic Studies at The Johns Hopkins University’s Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) is holding the first annual Young Strategists Programme in Security & Geo-economics, from 29 to 31 July 2013 at the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center in Bellagio, Italy.

The Young Strategists Programme will bring together 20 policy leaders, aged 35 and younger, from around the world to examine relationships between geopolitics, economics, and security. Topics addressed will include interstate conflict, cyber security, proliferation, climate change, terrorism, economic growth and development, financial and fiscal crisis, state failure, and post-conflict reconstruction, in particular as they relate to the lives of poor and vulnerable populations.

All programme participants will be required to submit a twenty-page paper on geo-economics and strategy by 03 June 2013. All papers will be distributed to the participants in advance of the programme, and will form the foundation of the programme curriculum. The best paper as decided by the programme faculty will be considered for publication in IISS’s journal Survival.

Selection Criteria

The application period for the 2013 Young Strategists Programme is now closed. 

We will being accepting applications for the 2014 edition of the Programme in the autumn.

Participants will be selected from government, academia, the private sector, and NGOs, and will hail from six continents. Applicants must be fluent in English and have been born on or after 01 January 1979.