The Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies

The Program on Strategy, Policy, and Diplomacy Research (SPDR) is a new, interdisciplinary program at the University of Washington focused on training the next generation of professionals working at the nexus of technology frontiers, policy, security, and diplomacy within and across countries.

Decision-makers in business, law, government, military, medicine, non-profit, media, and diplomacy sectors around the world need individuals with expertise in emerging technologies, skills in applied research methods, and knowledge of global and regional studies. SPDR is positioned to train students and educate current policy and diplomacy professionals to fill this workforce gap and act as a pipeline connecting academia to governments, intelligence,  national labs, think tanks, foundations, businesses, media, and other public and private organizations.

SPDR is built on a decade of expertise and experience cultivated through programs on space security and cybersecurity at the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies. These programs were initially funded by a grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York.

The goal of SPDR is to provide undergraduate students, graduate students, law students and faculty at the University of Washington as well as working professionals with contextualized subject matter expertise, skills in research methodologies and hands-on experience. Specifically, SPDR aims to: 

• Build expertise in strategic technology policy fields such as space, cybersecurity, AI, autonomous systems, robotics, nuclear, energy, and quantum information technologies. 

• Deepen knowledge of global and regional studies and place current situations in their historical, legal, regulatory, and political contexts. 

• Train students in policy-relevant qualitative methods and software analytics built on open-source data via interviews, focus groups, case studies, archival research, discourse analysis, and data ethnography.

• Professionalize students for real-world problem-solving, with an emphasis on experiential learning. 

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