ISGlobal Ranked One of the 10 Most Important Global Health Think Tanks in the World

Every year, the Lauder Institute  at the University of Pennsylvania produces the Global Go To Think Tank Index, a ranking of the most important policy think tanks in the world.  This year, ISGlobal was once again ranked as one of the world’s most influential global health think tanks, climbing from 16th place in 2016 to 9th in the world in the 2017 edition. In Europe, ISGlobal is the third most important global health think tank and the only one not located in the United Kingdom.

Gonzalo Fanjul, ISGlobal’s Director of Policy, explains that “the work we have been doing related to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) in addition to the collaborations set up through the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) and the Think_SDGs network, have strengthened our reputation and helped to consolidate our position as an important global health policy institute.

Rafael Vilasanjuan, Director of ISGlobal’s Policy and Global Development department, the home of the institute’s think tank, highlights that the new ranking “shows that a Spanish policy institute can have a global influence on issues like the SDGs, the model for pharmaceutical innovation and the future of development aid”.

The Voting Process

The Global Go To Think Tank Index classifies the main world think tanks into various categories and identifies the centres of excellence in each region of the world.  The process starts with an open nomination process. The first round is a call for nominations from all of the contacts on the Think Tanks and Social Civil Program database of 6,500 think tanks and almost 7,500 journalists, public and private donors, and policy managers from all over the world. Based on the response to that call, a list was drawn up in December 2017 of the think tanks with 10 or more nominations. The institutes on this long list were then evaluated by way of a survey of the groups invited to participate in the process. Based on the results of the survey, a panel of experts from each category made a final selection based on various pre-defined criteria, including the quality of the organisations’ policy analysis and publications, the impact of their studies on policy-makers and decision-makers, and their reputation in the media.

The ISGlobal Think Tank

In ISGlobal, the work of the think tank is carried out by the department of Analysis and Global Development, one of the pillars of the institute's model. The need for policy research analysis was one of the main reasons that led the "la Caixa" Foundation and other founding partners to create a global health institute in Barcelona. The Policy and Global Development department—in conjunction with the Training department—is responsible for the transfer to society of the knowledge generated by research and for ensuring that this knowledge is translated into policies that will realise its transformational potential.