Centers & Institutes at William & Mary
William & Mary is home to centers and institutes that span the globe in research and impact. These serve the entire university enterprise, receive significant philanthropic or grant funding and meaningfully connect William & Mary, its people and its brain trust, to stakeholders around the world. These multidisciplinary centers and institutes do this while offering consequential experiential and applied learning opportunities to students who address global problems that influence society.
Global Research Institute
W&M’s Global Research Institute is a multidisciplinary hub uniting academics, practitioners and students to apply research to real-world issues. GRI exists to incubate, support and scale research that makes a difference in the world. Since the institute’s founding in 2008, over 50 external partners have invested more than $70 million in GRI. Today, more than 50 faculty and staff and over 200 students conduct applied research with project collaborators such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Carnegie Corporation of New York, William & Flora Hewlett Foundation, World Bank, the U.S. Department of State, and the U.S. Agency for International Development. GRI insights guide the policy and strategic approach of its partners, and its findings are routinely discussed in elite media (The Economist, Foreign Policy, Washington Post, BBC, Reuters, Wall Street Journal), with its research published in leading outlets (Nature, International Organization, Oxford University Press). At the Global Research Institute, we recognize that real-world problems don’t abide by disciplinary boundaries, and neither do we. This is a community of problem solvers, delivering applied research at the highest levels.
Institute for Integrative Conservation
The Institute for Integrative Conservation (IIC) at William & Mary is at the forefront of transformational research and education aimed at solving critical conservation issues impacting global biodiversity. Working closely with a network of conservation partners, the IIC integrates expertise from across disciplines, blends diverse knowledge systems and fosters collaboration between academia, public and private sectors, Indigenous peoples and local communities. The IIC functions as a bridge connecting ideas to applied conservation research, enabling impactful conservation outcomes today and training tomorrow’s conservation leaders. The Institute offers a major in Integrative Conservation and mentorship for students, supported by W&M faculty across schools and disciplines and through collaboration with a large network of global conservation partners.
Reves Center for International Studies
The Reves Center for International Studies is the hub of globalization and global engagement at William & Mary and home of the Global Education Office and the Office of International Students, Scholars and Programs. Established in 1989 with a gift from Wendy Reves in memory of her husband Emery, author of The Anatomy of Peace, the Reves Center supports and promotes the internationalization of learning, teaching, research and community involvement at the university. Today the Reves Center continues to enhance international education at William & Mary through programs for education abroad, international students and scholars and global engagement across the university.
Whole of Government Center of Excellence
Amid intensifying globalization and increasing complexity, sound security policies require collaboration of multiple branches of the U.S. military and civilian government agencies. The W&M Whole of Government Center of Excellence trains a new generation of future leaders with hands-on, practical experience working across different organizational cultures that must be harmonized to facilitate true interagency collaboration — long before students find themselves facing such issues during a foreign deployment or national emergency. William & Mary has a well-earned reputation as a military-friendly university and its alumni serve at high levels in every major agency in the U.S. federal government. The university’s location near key Hampton Roads installations from every branch of the military, and not far from Washington D.C., also situated W&M as the right place to found the Whole of Government Center of Excellence.
