"We make thinking accessible via writings," he says.
Rather than sponsoring courses on its own, Wilson says the Weiner Center advocates on behalf of its students and researchers. It has a particular challenge in losing many faculty affiliates each time there is a new administration in Washington.
"Although research centers don't hire faculty, we have responsibility for making sure the courses our students need are taught," Wilson says.
Finding Green
While faculty choose to affiliate with centers for the support they offer, the centers' funding relies on their reputation and relevance to current policy problems.
The Joint Center for Housing Studies--housed by the KSG, but run jointly by the KSG and the Graduate School of Design--is funded by an advisory board composed of building materials companies, builders and financial services companies. Examples include Home Depot and National Gypsum.
"The advisory board has been around for a long time. The companies are leaders in their respective fields," says Nicolas P. Repsinas, who began as director of the forty-year-old Center for Housing Studies in March.
The center produces valuable data for these companies, according to Repsinas. Its signature report is the annual "State of the Nation's Housing."
Members of the advisory board choose to fund the center partly because of its affiliation with Harvard, which gives the research a context, according to Repsinas.
"[Housing] is a subject area including design, government, economics. It reflects the diversity that is Harvard," Repsinas says. The affiliation "gives it a special stature."
Foundation grants, rather than for-profit institutions, fund most of the other centers.
The Weiner Center just received funding for a new program in equity and social policy from the National Science Foundation. It is multidisciplinary. The impetus of the program came from the KSG center, but it will provide opportunities to faculty in disciplines and schools across Harvard, according to Wilson.
Falkenrath says that while some of the Belfer Center's programs have endowments, all apply for federal and foundation grants.
"They apply as individual faculty members and researchers. They like to do it this way," Falkenrath says. The center provides a financial office and an accountant and the institutional recognition and name value that convince foundations to fund faculty projects.
"The purpose of a research center should be to provide a location to carry out research that is better than doing it on their own," Falkenrath says.