IPS is a community of public scholars and organizers linking peace, justice, and the environment in the U.S. and globally. The Institute works with social movements to promote true democracy and challenge concentrated wealth, corporate influence, and military power.   

As Washington’s first progressive multi-issue think tank, the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) has served as a policy and research resource for visionary social justice movements for over four decades — from the anti-war and civil rights movements in the 1960s to the peace and global justice movements of the last decade.

Some of the greatest progressive minds of the 20th and 21st centuries have found a home at IPS, starting with the organization’s founders, Richard Barnet and Marcus Raskin. IPS scholars have included such luminaries as Arthur Waskow, Gar Alperovitz, Saul Landau, Bob Moses, Rita Mae Brown, Barbara Ehrenreich, Roger Wilkins and Orlando Letelier.    Today the Institute’s work is organized into more than a dozen projects, reflecting our public scholars’ diverse areas of expertise.