Prime Minister Erna Solberg of Norway to Keynote Center’s Launch
WASHINGTON, May 12, 2016 : The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) is pleased to announce the establishment of the Lillan and Robert D. Stuart Jr. Center in Euro-Atlantic and Northern European Studies.
The Stuart Center at CSIS aims to advance understanding of the evolution of Northern Europe’s political, security, economic, and energy developments, with particular research attention given to the regional implications of a rapidly changing Arctic. The Stuart Center will also focus on NATO’s collective defense, security cooperation, and deterrence role in Europe.
The Center’s immediate work will focus on the upcoming NATO Summit in Warsaw. It will also launch independent research initiatives designed to provide policy recommendations for the next administration.
The Stuart Center will convene senior officials, experts, business leaders, and civil society representatives from Northern Europe and the United States for dialogue and will facilitate and publish independent research and commentary on key Euro-Atlantic topics.
The Stuart Center is generously funded by an endowment gift from the Stuart Family Foundation and is named in honor of the late Ambassador Robert D. Stuart Jr., former U.S. ambassador to Norway (1984–1989) and devoted transatlanticist, as well as his wife, Lillan Stuart.
“CSIS is extremely fortunate to have such a committed and stalwart partner as the Stuart Family Foundation to help us reprioritize the study of Northern Europe in our foreign policy agenda and to return focus toward NATO as a key pillar of U.S. national security,” said Tom Pritzker, chairman of the CSIS Board of Trustees. “The Stuart Center will work to provide strategic policy options surrounding key issues at a critical time for policymakers.”
“The launch of the Stuart Center comes at a critical historic juncture when America’s foreign policy and national security direction is uncertain and its policy focus on Europe and NATO has greatly diminished,” said John J. Hamre, CSIS president and CEO. “In his public and private life, Bob Stuart continuously sought to ‘make a difference,’ and it is with this same spirit that CSIS approaches its bipartisan policy research and analytic agenda.”
Heather A. Conley, CSIS senior vice president for Europe, Eurasia, and the Arctic and former U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state for Northern Europe (2001–2005), will be the inaugural director of the Stuart Center. The work of the Stuart Center will be guided by an advisory council.
A public event will be held at CSIS on Friday, May 13, at 4:00 p.m., to mark the establishment of the Stuart Center, with a keynote address by Prime Minister Erna Solberg of Norway. Prime Minister Solberg is visiting Washington to participate in the U.S.-Nordic Leaders Summit, hosted by the White House.
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The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) is a bipartisan, nonprofit organization founded in 1962 and headquartered in Washington, D.C. It seeks to advance global security and prosperity by providing strategic insights and policy solutions to decisionmakers.