ISGlobal Consolidates its Position Among the World’s Top 10 Think Tanks in Global Health

The Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal) is once again one of the most valued think tanks in health. The 2018 ““Global Go To Think Tank” index established by the Lauder Institute at the University of Pennsylvania places ISGlobal in ninth position worldwide – and third in Europe –in the category of global health, the same position as in 2017, and for the first time it is included in the list of think tanks with the best use of the internet. Four other Spanish think tanks appear among the most important in the world, in the general category: CIDOB (position 37), the Real Instituto Elcano (48), FAES (88) and Fundación Alternativas (132).

The index established by the University of Pennsylvania classifies the main think tanks across the world in different categories and identifies the leading centers in each region of the world. Building on a database of 8,162 centers and a survey with almost 2,000 experts including journalists, academics, public and private donors and policy managers from all over the world, a final list was compiled according to field of expertise and based on criteria such as quality of analysis and publications, impact on policy makers, reputation in media or internet, among others.

Think tanks as Idea Generators

Coinciding with the report’s launch, a series of simultaneous events took place yesterday in more than 100 international organizations and NGOs, with the aim of highlighting the key role of think tanks for governments and civil societies across the world. In Barcelona, CIDOB organised, in collaboration with ISGlobal and the University of Pennsylvania, a debate on the role of think tanks as generators of ideas to respond to the political transformation and misinformation in society. Gonzalo Fanjul, director of Policy at ISGlobal, referred to the crisis of think tanks in a context where debate has become noisy and partial. He added that “Now, more than ever, we need the role of these intermediaries as refuge, portfolio of experts, and calm space for exercising the creativity required to generate new ideas to deal with new problems.”