Initiatives

The Stanford Global Studies Division (SGS) provides grants for Global Research Workshops to support the sharing of research across fields and national boundaries that advances our understanding of the world. Past topics have included Global Trends in Judicial Reform, Law and Literature in the Global South, Decarbonization in India and Africa, and Reframing Enslaved Pasts.

An unprecedented three-year initiative on Iranian art that investigates the multiple contexts that shift and define changing ideas of Iranian public space.

With Russia’s annexation of Crimea and intervention in eastern Ukraine in 2014, Europe is facing the greatest challenge to its stability and security since the Cold War. Russia’s actions have triggered a new era of uncertainty – and possibly sustained competition – between Russia and the United States and its European allies.  Russia’s motives may be somewhat opaque, but the effects of its actions have been unmistakable, particularly in generating anxiety among its Eastern Europe neighbors and condemnation internationally. Given the gravity of the threat to European stability and Stanford’s strength in this realm, the Europe Center, FSI, the Hoover Institution and other university partners have launched a new initiative on European security. Our first aim is to understand the nature of the conflict. Our second aim is to develop a long-term strategy to deal with the new challenge Russia presents.

The France-Stanford Center for Interdisciplinary Studies, founded in partnership with the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, aims to bridge the disciplines of the Humanities, Social Sciences, Sciences, Engineering, Business and Law, addressing historical and contemporary issues of significance for France and the United States from a broad range of perspectives. The center sponsors high quality collaborative research projects likely to foster new linkages and deepen existing connections between French scholars and students as well as their counterparts at Stanford.

The Human Rights in Trauma Mental Health Laboratory is an interdisciplinary collaboration between the Center for Human Rights & International Justice, Stanford Law School faculty, and Stanford's Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. The Lab is committed to advancing and applying research on the physical and psychiatric impact of trauma on survivors of human rights abuses with an eye towards informing transitional justice and judicial processes. 

Combatting human trafficking through research and policy advocacy is one of the core areas of the Center for Human Rights & International Justice's programming. This is evidenced by research projects, events programming, and policy advocacy.

The Center for Human Rights & International Justice uses trial monitoring as a capacity-building tool through regular and special reports that encourage the adoption of international best practices in human rights proceedings and war crimes trials in countries such as Cambodia, Timor-Leste, Indonesia, and Sierra Leone.

The Stanford Iran 2040 Project is an academic initiative that serves as a hub for academic researchers all around the world, particularly the Iranian diaspora scholars, to conduct research on issues related to the future of the Iranian economy and evaluate their possible implications in a global context.

The Sephardi Studies Project is an initiative by the Taube Center for Jewish Studies at Stanford in conjunction with the Mediterranean Studies Forum. It focuses on the written production in Ladino of the Judeo-Spanish communities of the Ottoman Empire. The website presents representative samples of Ladino texts over the centuries.

A collaboration with the Stanford University Libraries, the Virtual Tribunals project is a major initiative of the Center for Human Rights & International Justice, which aims to compile a comprehensive database of international criminal tribunal records, from the post-WWII cases through the contemporary tribunals, fully digitized, and rendered searchable through a single online portal.