Institute for Security and Development Policy

General information

The Institute for Security and Development Policy is a Stockholm-based non-profit and non-partisan research and policy organization. ISDP is dedicated to expanding understanding of international affairs, focusing on the inter-relationship between security, conflict, and development. The Institute strongly believes in ethnic diversity, gender equality, and religious and political freedom and firmly stands for it in all aspects of its work.

ISDP’s work aims at providing strategic analysis and practical solutions to assist decision-makers in both public and private sectors to achieve their goals. ISDP holds firm to the conviction that an understanding of international affairs requires a deep and comprehensive knowledge of the culture and history of regions and countries under study, and continuous interaction with a broad cross-section of these societies. ISDP seeks to achieve its aims through the publication of its research and analysis in formats accessible to a broad audience, as well as through practical steps to promote dialogue.

ISDP presently has two major geographic areas of focus.

The Asia Program focuses on the rimland of the Eurasian continent, including East, Southeast and South Asia. The aim of the Program is to function as a focal point for academic, policy, and public discussion of the region through its applied research, its publications, research cooperation, public lectures and seminars. The Asia Program publishes the Asia Paper series, as well as two shorter series. ISDP also runs an active guest researcher exchange program, which admits 10-15 researchers from amongst others China, Myanmar, North Korea, South Korea, Pakistan, and the United States every year.

The Silk Road Studies Program focuses mainly on the central and western parts of Eurasia, including Central Asia, the Caucasus, the northern tier of the Middle East, as well as Eastern Europe. Through this program, the institute operates a Joint Transatlantic Research and Policy Center with the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies. It is the first Center of its kind in Europe and North America, and publishes the Silk Road Papers Series, as well as the biweekly Central Asia-Caucasus Analyst and Turkey Analyst.