Expertise To Impact - IIR's New Motto

We’ve been around for more than sixty years. For the last thirty, we have been advising the makers of democratic Czech foreign policy on international political issues of the day so that they could better understand the more complex and interconnected world and act on it from a position of a European state committed to democratic ideals, norms of international society, to multilateralism and cooperation.

It’s also been here at the Institute that the Czech science of international relations has been pioneered and developed into a globally competitive set of research programmes. We contribute to the ongoing debates in our field with cutting edge research.
This is what we do. Expertise that is not instant but carefully tended and cultivated. Expertise that meets the highest standards of research that is systematic, critical, honest, and empirical.

This expertise is not to just be. To be sure, it to be independent of political pressures. But it is also to be effective in terms of seeking a public policy that is competent and compassionate.

To speak truth about complex issues that animate our political debate today is a difficult undertaking. It means bypassing the ideological narrows caused by ignorance, blind partisanship or seductions of technocratic governance. It is not partisan to the world as one that cannot be reimagined as a better place and whose machines of governance it should only finetune to ensure their smooth operation.

To speak such truth necessitates deep learning, sensitivity to nuance, reflection of one’s starting assumptions (or ontological wagers, if you like), and fundamental humanity.

It is a difficult undertaking. Yet it is essential for foreign policy making that is done in public interest.
… and so it is what we aspire to do, translating our expertise in international politics into a positive social impact.

In short, #ExpertiseToImpact.

Have a look at some of our recent public analyses of current international issues in the links attached.