GW CENTER FOR GLOBALIZATION GRANTS

GW FACULTY $215,000 IN RESEARCH AWARDS

WASHINGTON – The George Washington University Center for the Study of Globalization (GWCSG) announces the award of $215,000 to GW faculty in support of pioneering research on globalization and its effects. The grants were given to six collaborative research teams that address GWCSG’s three signature areas of research and education: Globalization and Convergence; Global Financing and Investment; and Globalization and Information Technology. 

Globalization is linking together industry and academic researchers and the Internet allows the nearly instant sharing of ideas and research results.  GW Professor Robert Rycroft and Associate Professor Nicholas Vonortas have investigated networks of innovations by looking at the connections between industry alliances and patents.  They have expanded their research by investigating innovative networks in specific industrial sectors – including the automobile and pharmaceutical industries – and by analyzing their policy implications.

The convergence of national economic policies is investigated by GW Professors James Kee, Kathryn Newcomer and Robert Weiner, who in partnership with universities and researchers in the UK, China, Brazil and Egypt, are conducting a multi-disciplinary investigation into different privatization approaches across the world.  A unique aspect of this research project is their focus on the ways that privatized organizations (former state-owned enterprises) change – or resist change – post-privatization.

Using case studies from the E.U. to Turkey to Japan and beyond, GW Associate Professor Scheherazade Rehman and Assistant Professor Liesl Riddle investigate the impact of globalization on the competition policy of individual nations.  They explore the question of whether a harmonized global competition policy is feasible or even desirable and if so, would it result in facilitating trade, investment and economic prosperity in both developed and less developed countries.

Patterns of economic migration are transforming cities around the world, changing the demand on government services and the very character of cities. Global cities are emerging as a new source of economic power.  Yet little research has been conducted on contemporary migration to less popular destinations. GW Associate Professors Marie Price and Lisa Benton-Short and Assistant Professor Samantha Friedman address this oversight through investigating the importance of migratory flows to a network of global cities such as Sydney, Stockholm and Dubai.

International financial markets are more integrated today than ever before. However, the Chinese Renminbin (RMB) is only gradually beginning to be integrated into the world economy. Associate Professor Jiawen Yang and Professor Isabelle Bajeux-Besnainou explore the impact that full convertibility of the RMB could potentially have upon world currency markets and its implications for trade patterns. 

Assistant Professors Jennifer Brinkerhoff and Lori Brainard investigate “digital diasporas:” groups who are using the Internet to both maintain their national identities and to advocate their political agendas in their cultural home territories.  Among the topics they explore are how the Internet facilitates group organization and activities, and what roles digital diaspora groups play in the economic development of their home territories. 

“These research projects address an array of issues that are both driving globalization and changing the forms of globalization,” said John Forrer, director of the GW Center for the Study of Globalization. “With over three dozen GW faculty conducting research on globalization issues, we are creating a unique storehouse of information at GW on the forces of globalization and how they are affecting our lives day-to-day.”  

The GWCSG was established in 2001 to promote research and public education on the many facets of globalization study. Over the past two years, the GWCSG has granted almost $500,000 to faculty from 15 departments and centers across the GW campus to pursue globalization research projects. These six newly-awarded projects join 15 others already underway. Research findings to-date from the projects underway are published as Occasional Papers.  The GWCSG Occasional Paper Series, as well as full descriptions of all supported research, can be found at http://www.gwu.edu/~gwcsg.

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