Our Mission

The Center’s activities have four objectives:

(1) to make Case Western Reserve University a continually more attractive and rewarding institution for students and faculty who wish to learn about and engage in the creation of public policy;

(2) to raise the public profile of the University by sponsoring programs and other activities that publicize and increase the reach of the work of CWRU’s policy analysts and their guests;

(3) to contribute to the wider community by disseminating information and analysis of policy issues as generated both by CWRU faculty and by guests whom we bring to campus; and

(4) to encourage creation of a community of policy studies on campus that may serve in the future as the basis for further development of policy-oriented curriculum at both the undergraduate and graduate levels.

The Center for Policy Studies was officially established in July 1998 by the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. Although based in the College, the Center endeavors to stimulate greater interest in policy issues at CWRU, to encourage the many policy scholars across the University to interact with each other and with the larger public beyond the campus, and to increase the local and national visibility of policy studies at CWRU. Scores of scholars at CWRU have an explicit interest in policy-oriented studies. Their interests include and go far beyond health care quality, organization, and finance; human resource development and investment; globalization and the emergence of new agents and actors in world affairs; issues of law, medicine, and ethics; the challenges of poverty and disadvantage; issues of energy and the environment; financing and development of the arts; and development of the local and regional economies.

More than a dozen centers at CWRU currently deal with public issues with policy implications, either as a central part of their missions or as significant ancillary activities. Among them are:

The Center for Urban Poverty and Economic Development in MSASS focuses on community-based approaches to addressing the problems of persistent and concentrated urban poverty. The Center works closely with policy-makers and advocacy organizations to bring its research into the public policy discussion.

The University Center on Aging and Health is affiliated with the School of Nursing. Since 1978 the Center has been working to promote the health of elderly persons through education, research, community outreach, and service.

The Center for Science, Health and Society, based in the School of Medicine, is a collaboration between the University and the city of Cleveland to improve both population health and health care delivery through community outreach, education, and health policy.

The Center for Health Care Research and Policy, affiliated with the School of Medicine at Metrohealth Medical Center, conducts research that examines access to health care and the quality of health care services, in order to inform both health policy and practice; while also leading educational programs that promote these goals.

The Center for Global Health and Diseases, in the School of Medicine, provides a coordinating structure among academic disciplines within the university and institutions across Northeast Ohio, for a program of research, training, and clinical application to improve health in developing countries.

The Center for Genetic Research, Ethics, and Law addresses the difficult moral choices for individuals, their families and the health professionals who work with them. The Center’s faculty have conducted original research and made their findings available to a national audience in both professional and popular formats. They are also actively involved in establishing health policy development at various levels of society.

The Law-Medicine Center was the first law school-based program in the United States to study legal medicine and health law. It publishes the journal Health Matrix and, throughout its history, has been one of the top ten programs on this topic in the nation.

The Frederick K. Cox International Law Center offers courses, activities and foreign study options that concentrate on the legal aspects of globalization.

The Center for Law, Technology and the Arts focuses on teaching, research and programs pertaining to intellectual property, technological innovation, and technology transfer; the intersection of science, economics, philosophy and the law; legal issues concerning biotechnology and computer technologies; and laws and cultural issues relating to the creative arts.

The Institute for Global Security Law and Policy develops and integrates the best learning from the academic and applied settings to provide innovative programs, research, teaching and service on the issues of security and counter-terrorism.

The Case Center for Business as an Agent of World Benefit conducts a global search for ways that leaders in the business sector are putting their people, imagination, and assets to work to benefit the earth, from its ecosystem to the needs of its vast, diverse population.

The Schubert Center for Child Studies promotes understandings of child development from infancy through adolescence, and in local, national, and international contexts. Its Child Policy Initiative addresses the need to more closely link child-related academic study, public policy formation, and professional practice.

The Center for Policy Studies encourages interaction and dissemination through the weekly Friday Public Affairs Discussion Group, open to all members of the university community as well as the local community; through public forums at which faculty or guests address the issues of the day; and through encouraging more private meetings that bring policy researchers and students in contact with both policy advocates and decision-makers. It will continually seek to expand current activities and develop other measures to build community and disseminate knowledge.