Press Release of 25 January 2011

The latest edition of The Global “Go-To Think Tanks” has just been published. Of 6480 institutions identified globally for inclusion in the study, 75 Think Tanks were nominated as “The Leading Think Tanks In The World“ – among them the German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE) for the third time in a row.

In the category of “Top 25 International Development Think Tanks“ the German Development Institute now ranks number 4. This means that DIE is in the same league as the US-based Brookings Institution and the Center for Global Development as well as the UK-based Overseas Development Institute and Chatham House. Furthermore, DIE obtained excellent marks in the categories of “Think Tanks with the Most Innovative Policy Ideas/Proposals“, “Outstanding Policy-Oriented Public Policy Research Program“ as well as “Best Government Affiliated Think Tanks“.

“This fantastic result is an encouragement for us to further our agenda setting on global development topics and to continue to provide excellent research, consulting services and training”, states DIE-Director Dirk Messner.

The Global "Go-To Think Tanks” report identifies the leading public policy research organisations in the world. The Think Tanks and Civil Societies Program, which is part of the International Relations Program at the University of Pennsylvania, grew out of requests from journalists, scholars and government officials who wanted a list of the leading Think Tanks in a particular country or region of the world. The report summarises the findings and identifies what might be called the “go-to think tanks” in every region of the world. Institutions were nominated by a panel of experts from around the world. The participants in this project agreed to submit their lists of high performance Think Tanks and then rank the combined list so that the top Think Tanks might be identified.