About GPPi

The Global Public Policy Institute (GPPi) is an independent non-profit think tank based in Berlin. Our mission is to improve global governance through research, policy advice and debate. 

Reflect. Advise. Engage.

Reflect: At GPPi we conduct research as a means to engage with the world around us and to better understand and explain it. We analyze global affairs with aspirations of policy relevance and academic excellence. To this end, we partner with leading universities and research institutions, while basing our research questions on the analytical and normative issues that practitioners in global politics face. Building bridges between academia and practice also needs effective communication. We therefore seek to present our research results in a clear, accessible manner.

Advise: GPPi offers policy advice for clients from the public sector, including the United Nations, the European Commission and national governments. We translate the findings generated in our research into practical input to inform organizational change and learning. In this work, we tap into our clients’ deep understanding of the day-to-day practice of diplomacy, development cooperation or humanitarian action.

Engage: We use the insights of our research and policy advice to foster public debate on key issues in global politics, as well as feed the questions raised in global debates back into our research and advisory work. In addition, GPPi brings people together to exchange ideas and develop common initiatives. Through debate and dialogue we aim to support and assemble social and political entrepreneurs, build strategic communities and nurture global leadership. Effective and accountable governance requires individuals who are creative, thoughtful and unafraid to work across boundaries.

Reaching Scale Through Partnerships

When GPPi opened its Berlin office in October 2003, it was little more than an idea. More than 20 years on, we have established ourselves as a think tank while remaining true to the founding ideas about the kind of organization we wanted to create. We have deliberately opted for careful and organic growth. This allows us to be flexible, to sustain an informal culture and to nurture familiarity and trust among the team. For us, this is the ideal environment to produce creative and cutting-edge thinking. To reach scale and impact, the GPPi team works with a continuously growing global network of individuals and organizations.

GPPi’s advisory board members support the team in key aspects of our work, allowing us to draw on their experience in many fields. GPPi non-resident fellows are academics and professionals from different disciplines who are based at universities, international organizations and foundations; some have built their own organizations. These fellows work with us on individual projects and provide input, feedback and contacts. In addition, GPPi draws on the support and dedication of the GPPi alumni circle. Many members are former GPPi colleagues who maintain close ties with the institute while pursuing their academic and professional careers.

Management Approach

GPPi’s managers aim to build and grow a unique and sustainable institution while also developing their own fields of interest and expertise. To make time for thematic work on global governance, the members of GPPi’s management team share responsibility for overseeing tasks such as hiring, staff development, fundraising and project development, financial planning, and communications, as well as organizational development.

At the same time, GPPi management team members pursue their own areas of interest. Most lead the work on one or more of the institute’s issue areas: Peace & Security, Humanitarian Action, Monitoring & Evaluation, Global Order, Human Rights and Democracy, Migration, Strategic Foresight, and Data & Technology Politics.

The management team is supported by the association’s executive committee. The executive committee works on a pro-bono basis. It is currently chaired by Wolfgang Reinicke, GPPi’s president and co-founder. In addition to Wolfgang, there are six members of the executive committee: Thorsten Benner, Philipp Rotmann and Julia Steets, who are also part of the management team, as well as Claudia Meier, Jan Martin Witte and Andrea Binder. Jan Martin is one of the institute’s founders and, like Andrea and Claudia, a former member of the GPPi management team. The committee represents the association and is responsible for all decisions with broader financial and strategic implications.

GPPi is fully committed to promoting gender equality at all levels of the organization and across all aspects of our work. We believe that it is our responsibility to help strengthen diversity, equity and inclusion in our field – and to practice what we preach within our own organization. 

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