‘SIPRI North America will enhance SIPRI’s active engagement with expert and policy communities around the world,’ said SIPRI Director Dr. Bates Gill. ‘SIPRI has a long history of providing independent, innovative and international perspectives on contemporary challenges to peace and security. SIPRI North America will give us a new platform for SIPRI's research on conflict, armaments, arms control, and disarmament. It will also help to build bridges between researchers and policymakers on both sides of the Atlantic.’
According to SIPRI North America Executive Director Dr. Chantal de Jonge Oudraat, ‘I want SIPRI North America to build on SIPRI’s exceptionally strong research record and to increase transatlantic and global interaction on vital public policy issues regarding international peace and security. SIPRI North America will be seeking out new partnerships and collaborations in the United States and Canada.’
SIPRI North America’s work will initially focus on: arms control and disarmament; global health and security; regional security issues; and women, war and peace. In Spring 2012, SIPRI North America will launch a research program on the regional implications of the planned withdrawal of foreign troops from Afghanistan in 2014 and organize a series of roundtables bringing together North Americans, Europeans, and experts from China, Russia and Central and Southwest Asia.
An international conference in Washington, DC, to examine the issue of sexual violence in conflict and post-conflict situations is being co-organized by SIPRI North America in partnership with the USIP Center for Gender and Peacebuilding, the Human Rights Center at the University of California in Berkeley, and the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO).
SIPRI North America is an independent US non-profit organization governed by a Board of Directors composed of: Dr. Barry Blechman, Prof. Sissela Bok, Ms. Susan Eisenhower, Dr. Bates Gill (Director of SIPRI and Vice-chair of SIPRI North America), Professor Catherine McArdle Kelleher (Chair of SIPRI North America), Ambassador Henrik Liljegren, Dr. Steven E. Miller, Mr. Robert Nurick, Ambassador Thomas Pickering, Ambassador Thomas Siebert (Chair-elect of SIPRI North America), Ambassador Kurt Volker, and Mr. Fred Whitridge Jr.
Prior to joining SIPRI, Dr. de Jonge Oudraat was Associate Vice-president and Director of the Jennings Randolph fellowship programs at the US Institute of Peace. She has also held senior positions at the Johns Hopkins/SAIS Center for Transatlantic Relations, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research in Geneva. She has published widely and is co-editor of Women and War: Power and Protection in the 21st Century (USIP Press: Washington, DC, 2011) and Managing Global Issues: Lessons Learned (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace: Washington, DC, 2009).