Columbia World Projects

Columbia World Projects mobilizes the university’s researchers and scholars to work with governments, organizations, businesses and communities to tackle global challenges.

Columbia World Projects is a major, university-wide initiative that aims to forge a closer and more useful connection between Columbia University's vast research capabilities and the needs of the world.

In consultation with colleagues within and outside Columbia, we devise projects that we staff and operate with partners in New York City, across the United States, and around the world. These projects span a range of topics and are rooted in university research. Each project has a finite duration and clear, measurable objectives. When our direct involvement in a project ends, the work should continue and have a broad impact beyond the project itself.

We have many activities beyond our projects. We are an active presence on the Columbia campus and in the surrounding community through a wide range of events and convenings that engage faculty, students, and community members in our larger mission to connect the worlds of knowledge and action.

In the same spirit, we operate the Obama Foundation Scholars Program to use university resources to help make an annual cohort of rising activists more effective in their work. And we are researchers ourselves, on broad topics like cities and democratic institutions, rigorously studying how research can translate into successful practice.