Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies

The Graduate Institute of International Studies was co-founded in 1927 by two scholar-diplomats working for the League of Nations Geneva secretariat: the Swiss William Rappard, director of the Mandates Section, and the Frenchman Paul Mantoux, director of the Political Section.[7][16][17] A bilingual institution like the League, it was to train personnel for the nascent international organisation.[7] Its co-founder, Rappard, served as director from 1928 to 1955.[7]

Earlier logo of the Graduate Institute of International Studies

IHEID's later logo at Villa Barton's main gate

The Institute's original mandate was based on a close working relationship with both the League of Nations and the International Labour Organization. It was agreed that in exchange for training staff and delegates, the Institute would receive intellectual resources and diplomatic expertise (guest lecturers, etc.) from the aforementioned organisations. According to its statutes, the Graduate Institute was "an institution intended to provide students of all nations the means of undertaking and pursuing international studies, most notably of a historic, judicial, economic, political and social nature."[7]

In the late 1920s and 1930s, summer schools of international relations held at the Graduate Institute became a must-go for students of international relations worldwide, particulary American ones.[18][19][20] The course, which covered general introductions to international relations, international law, and economic relations were known as the Geneva School of International Studies.[20] Organized by Oxford University international relations professor Alfred Zimmern, they would be attended by hundreds of students each year.[20] The initiative that begun in 1923 operated in parallel with the early planning for the launch of the Graduate Institute and the experience acquired by the former helped to shape the latter.[21] The 'Geneva Schools' or 'Zimmern Schools', as they became known, were taught by scholars like Louis Eisenmann, Ernst Jäckh, Paul Mantoux, and Arnold J. Toynbee alongside a variety of 'public men' such as Edvard Beneš, Lord David Cecil, Paul Hymans, Fridtjof Nansen, and Arthur Salter, 1st Baron Salter.[22][20] The last Geneva School was held in 1939.[23]

The Graduate Institute managed to attract a number of eminent faculty and lecturers, particularly from countries mired in oppressive Nazi regimes, e.g., Hans Wehberg and Georges Scelle for law, Maurice Bourquin for diplomatic history, and the rising young Swiss jurist, Paul Guggenheim. Subsequently, more noted scholars would join the institute's faculty. Hans Kelsen, the well-known theorist and philosopher of law, Guglielmo Ferrero, Italian historian, and Carl Burckhardt, scholar and diplomat all called the Graduate Institute home. Other arrivals, similarly seeking refuge from dictatorships, included the eminent free market economy historian, Ludwig von Mises, and another economist, Wilhelm Ropke, who greatly influenced German postwar liberal economic policy as well as the development of the theory of a social market system.[21]

In its early years, the Graduate Institute had developed a system whereby cours temporaires were given by prominent intellectuals on a week, semester, or yearlong basis. These cours temporaires were the intellectual showcase of the institute, attracting such names as Raymond Aron, René Cassin, Luigi Einaudi, John Kenneth Galbraith, G. P. Gooch, Gottfried Haberler, Friedrich von Hayek, Hersch Lauterpacht, Lord McNair, Gunnar Myrdal,[24] Harold Nicolson, Philip Noel Baker, Pierre Renouvin, Lionel Robbins, Jean-Rodolphe de Salis, Harold Laski, Eric Voegelin, Count Carlo Sforza, Jacob Viner, Quincy Wright and Martin Wight.[21][20]

For a period of almost thirty years (1927–1954) the school was funded predominantly through the support of the Rockefeller Foundation. Since then the canton of Geneva and the Swiss Federal Council bear most of the costs associated with the institute. This transfer of financial responsibility coincided with the 1955 arrival of William Rappard's successor as director of the institute, Lausanne historian Jacques Freymond. Freymond inaugurated a period of great expansion, increasing the range of subjects taught and the number of both students and faculty, a process that continued well after his retirement in 1978. Under Freymond's tenure, the Graduate Institute hosted many international colloquia that discussed preconditions for East–West negotiations, relations with China and its rising influence in world affairs, European integration, techniques and results of politico-socioeconomic forecasting (the famous early Club of Rome reports, and the Futuribles project led by Bertrand de Jouvenel), the causes and possible antidotes to terrorism, Pugwash Conference concerns and much more. Freymond's term also saw many landmark publications, including the Treatise on international law by Professor Paul Guggenheim and the six-volume compilation of historical documents relating to the Communist International.[21]

Despite its small size - before the 1980s the faculty never exceeded 25 members, the Institute boasts four faculty members who have received Nobel Prizes for economics – Gunnar Myrdal, Friedrich von Hayek, Maurice Allais, and Robert Mundell. Three alumni have been Nobel laureates.

In 2008, the Graduate Institute of International Studies absorbed the Graduate Institute of Development Studies (abbreviated IUED), a smaller postgraduate institution also based in Geneva and founded in 1961. To reflect its new and broader mission, the school was renamed Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies.[25]

The history of the Graduate Institute of Development Studies also involves Freymond, who founded the institution in 1961 as the Institut Africain de Genève, or African Institute of Geneva. It was among the pioneer institutions in Europe to develop the scholarly field of sustainable development. The school was also known for the critical view of many of its professors on development aid, as well as for its journal, the Cahiers de l'IUED.[26]

The MINT (Master of Arts in International and Development Studies) is an intensive two-year interdisciplinary master programme which begins with a rigorous foundation in quantitative and qualitative methods and in all the disciplines of the Institute. In addition to their coursework, students must typically complete a capstone applied research project, two skills workshops, and a thesis between 15,000 and 25,000 words. Students can choose to specialize in one of seven thematic tracks: Sustainable Trade and Finance; Conflict, Peace and Security; Environment and Sustainability; Gender, Race and Diversity; Global Health; Human Rights and Humanitarianism; and Mobilities, Migrations and Boundaries.[40]

An advanced disciplinary two-year master's programme (MA/MPhil/LLM Res equivalent) is offered by each of the Graduate Institute's five academic departments: Anthropology & Sociology,[41] International Economics,[42] International History & Politics,[43] International Law,[44] and International Relations & Political Science.[45] In general, the disciplinary programme includes taught coursework and workshops that prepare students for conducting research and writing their master's thesis during their final semester.

As regards the law programme, the first year is substantively equivalent to an LL.M, whereas the second year is designed to prepare students for studies at the doctoral level. The school also offers a one-year LL.M in international law.[44]

In addition, a number of students transition during the MPhil to PhD status by way of the Fast Track programme.[46]

The MAS (Master of Advanced Studies) in Sustainable Finance and Development is a one-year master's programme offered by the Graduate Institute's department of International Economics. It combines training in the empirical and analytical tools required for employment in the fields of ESG and impact investing.[47]

Executive education programmes include masters and certificates in international law, international relations, international negotiation and policy-making, and development policies and practices.[48]

PhD (Doctorate) students specialize in one disciplinary field. PhD candidates who wish to carry out bi-disciplinary research choose a main discipline (a major) and a second discipline (a minor).[49]

The Graduate Institute has established joint or dual degree programmes with: the MPA programme at Harvard Kennedy School; the LLM in Global Health Law programme at the Georgetown University Law Center; the MS program in global health at the Global Studies Institute, University of Geneva; the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro; the BA programmes at Yale University's Jackson School of Global Affairs; Smith College; Wellesley College; Mount Holyoke College; Seton Hall University; Colgate University; China Foreign Affairs University; Sophia University; Peking University and the University of Hong Kong.[50]

The Graduate Institute's main campus is the Maison de la paix (literally "House of Peace"), which opened in 2013.[52] The Maison de la Paix is a 38,000 meter-square glass building distributed into six connected sections. It contains the Davis Library, which holds 350,000 books about social sciences, journals and annual publications, making it one of Europe's richest libraries in the fields of development and international relations. It is named after two Institute alumni—Ambassador Shelby Cullom Davis and his wife Kathryn Davis, following the Davis' $10 million donation to the institute.[53]

The neighboring Picciotto Student Residence was completed in 2012 and provides 135 apartments for students and visiting professors. Another, larger student residence, the Grand Morillon Student Residence, opened in 2021. Japanese architect Kengo Kuma designed the 680-bed student housing building.[54]

In addition to serving as the institute's main campus, the Maison de la paix also houses policy centres and advocacy groups with close ties to the Institute such as the Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces (DCAF), the Geneva Centre for Security Policy (GCSP) the Geneva International Centre for Humanitarian Demining, Interpeace, the International Institute of Humanitarian Law and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development.[52]

The Villa Moynier campus

Another section of the campus are two historic villas situated by Lake Geneva, Villa Barton and Villa Moynier. Villa Barton served as the institute's main campus for most of the school's history. It now mostly houses administrative staff. Villa Moynier, created in 2001 and which opened in October 2009, houses the Institute-based Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights and Geneva Center for International Dispute Settlement. The building holds a symbolic significance as it was originally owned by Gustave Moynier, co-founder of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), and subsequently used by the League of Nations and as the headquarters of the ICRC between 1933 and 1946.[55]

The institute's research activities are conducted both at fundamental and applied levels with the objective of bringing analysis to international actors, private or public, of main contemporary issues. These research activities are conducted by the faculty of the institute, as part of their individual work, or by interdisciplinary teams within centres and programmes whose activity focus on these main fields: Conflict, security, and peacebuilding; Development policies and practices; Culture, religion, and identity; Dispute settlement; Environment and natural resources; Finance and development; Gender; Globalisation; Governance; Humanitarian action; Migration and refugees; Non-state actors and civil society; Rural development; Trade, regionalism, and integration.[56]

Furthermore, the Graduate Institute is home to the Curt Gasteyger Chair in International Security and Conflict Studies, the André Hoffmann Chair in Environmental Economics, the Pictet Chair in Finance and Development, the UNESCO Chair in Comparative Education Policy, and the Claude Ségré Chair on Conservation and Development.[57]

The centres of the Institute distribute analysis and research that contributes to the analysis of international organisations headquartered in Geneva:

• The Centre on Conflict, Development and Peacebuilding is for research in the areas of conflict analysis, peacebuilding, and the complex relationships between security and development.[58]
• The Centre for International Environmental Studies was established in 2010 for the purpose of developing political, legal and economic discourse on problems related to the global environment.[59]
• The Centre for Trade and Economic Integration brings together the research activities of eminent professors of economics, law and political science in the area of trade, economic integration and globalization. The Centre provides a forum for discussion and dialogue between the global research community, including the institute's student body and research centres in the developing world, and the international business community, as well as international organisations and NGOs.[60]
• The Centre for Finance and Development's research deals with finance and development at three levels: international finance, and development finance in particular, including the role played by the international financial institutions such as the IMF and the World Bank; financial development, including banking and financial sector development in emerging and developing countries, both from contemporary and historical perspectives; microeconomics of finance and development.[61]
• The Global Governance Centre provides a forum for scholars of governance and international organisations to interact with practitioners from the policy world in order to analyse global governance arrangements across a variety of issues.[62]
• The Global Health Centre's activities focus on two pillars, namely global health governance and global health diplomacy.[63]
• The Global Migration Centre focus on the transnational dimensions of migration and its interdisciplinary orientation. It combines inputs from lawyers, political scientists, economists, historians, anthropologists and sociologists.[64]
• The Albert Hirschman Centre on Democracy seeks to understand what ails democracies worldwide in an interdisciplinary and comparative perspective.[65]
• The Gender Centre produces research on the workings of gender in development and international relations and serves as a channel for the dissemination of such knowledge in both the anglophone and the francophone worlds.[66]
• The Small Arms Survey is an independent research project that serves as the principal international source of public information on all aspects of small arms and armed violence and as a resource for governments, policy-makers, researchers, and activists.[67]

The founding directors of the Graduate Institute of International Studies were Paul Mantoux (1927-1951) and William Rappard (1928-1955). The school was then headed by Jacques Freymond (1955-1978), Christian Dominicé (1978-1984), Lucius Caflisch (1984-1990), Alexandre Swoboda (1990-1998), Peter Tschopp (1998-2002), Jean-Michel Jacquet (2002-2004) and Philippe Burrin (2004-2020). Its current director is Marie-Laure Salles.[74]

The Graduate Institute is constituted as a Swiss private law foundation, Fondation pour les hautes études internationales et du développement, sharing a convention with the University of Geneva.[75] This is a particular organisational form, because the Graduate Institute is constituted as a foundation of private law fulfilling a public purpose. In addition, the political responsibility for the Institute shared between the Swiss Confederation and the canton of Geneva. Usually in Switzerland, it is the responsibility of the cantons to run public universities, except for the Federal Institutes of Technology (ETHZ and EPFL). The Graduate Institute is therefore something like a hybrid institution, in-between the two standard categories.[76]

The Foundation Board is the administrative body of the Institute. It assembles academics, politicians, people of public life and practitioners. It includes among others: Carlos Lopes, currently UN under secretary general and executive secretary of the Economic Commission for Africa, Julia Marton-Lefèvre (former director general of the International Union for Conservation of Nature), Joëlle Kuntz (journalist), and Tamar Manuelyan Atinc, (a former World Bank vice president).[25]

The Graduate Institute has exchange partnerships with the following institutions internationally:[77]

The Graduate Institute is an active member of the following associations and academic networks:

• APSIA – Association of Professional Schools of International Affairs: academic institutions specialising in international relations and international public policy are represented among APSIA's thirty-odd members.[15]
• European University Association: Represents and supports more than 850 institutions of higher education in 46 countries, providing them with a forum for cooperation and exchange of information on higher education and research policies.[78]
• Europaeum: Created at the initiative of the University of Oxford, the Europaeum is composed of ten leading European institutions of higher education and research.[79]
• European Consortium for Political Research: The ECPR is an independent scholarly association that supports the training, research and cross-national cooperation of many thousands of academics and graduate students specialising in political science and all its sub-disciplines.[80]
• European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes: The EADI is the largest existing network of research and training institutes active in the field of development studies.[81]
• Agence Universitaire de la Francophonie: The AUF supports the build-up a French-language research area between French-speaking universities. The institute is one of 536 members belonging to the AUF and takes part in its exchange programmes in the fields of teaching and research.[82]
• Swiss University Conference: The SUC is a governmental organisation tasked with accrediting officially recognized Swiss universities.[83]

• Carlos Fuentes – Mexican novelist