Research Centers

Center for Science and Technology Policy

The School of Public Policy's Center for Science and Technology Policy (CSTP) focuses on how people use technology to address global challenges, with particular attention to institutions and incentives at the boundary between public and private domains.

The core activity of the Center is the production of Innovations: Technology | Governance | Globalization, an MIT Press journal that prominently situates Mason within a community creatively using technology and new modes of organization to arrive at solutions to global challenges. The journal is co-edited by CSTP Director Philip Auerswald and Iqbal Quadir, founding Director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Program in Developmental Entrepreneurship.

"Beyond core missions in education and knowledge creation, large universities like Mason are increasingly expected to drive economic development and find solutions to complex social challenges such as global climate change and persistent poverty," Auerswald observes. "Universities are arguably most effective when they build and sustain open platforms to inform and connect people whose collective understanding can lead to lasting solutions. That’s what we’re trying to do with this journal. Innovations complements existing journals by cutting across academic disciplines and linking human action with global impact," says Auerswald.

Innovations, co-hosted by CSTP and the Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, is supported in part by Mason’s Center for Global Studies. The journal’s advisory and editorial boards include the current President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, former U.S. Presidential Science Advisors, a former NASA Administrator, SPP faculty members, and recognized leaders in social entrepreneurship. Additional information is available at policy.gmu.edu/innovations.

CURRENT CSTP RESEARCH PROJECTS