Think Тanks: Way of Utilization

Thierry de Montbrial is the Founder and Executive Chairman of IFRI, France’s leading think tank. He is also the Chairman of the World Policy Conference (WPC), which he founded in 2008.

Every aspect of his intellectual engagement and action are permeated with the idea that progress in human societies is possible when reason and sensitivity are harmoniously combined. Trained in the exact sciences and in particular in mathematics, in which his interest has never flagged, he wrote his doctoral thesis at Berkeley on the time dimension in the economic theory of general equilibrium, directed by Gérard Debreu, 1983 Nobel Prize winner. The concepts of time and equilibrium, and thus History, can be found throughout his work. In his view, economics remains the queen of the sciences of action, even though, as 2008 showed, reality sometimes offers a harsh reminder of its limits. He transformed the way the subject is taught at the Paris École Polytechnique, with a team he chaired for eighteen years (1974-1992).

The short articles published in this book bring the reader into the think tanks world and their role in stabilizing the international system. Thierry de Montbrial's original definition for this type of organization states that they are open and that they have a permanent working core of researchers who have their task of formulating - on an objective basis - policy ideas and private or public strategies that would be useful for the common interest. The think tanker explores the problems as an academic, think like a politician or a diplomat, write as a journalist, and know how to provide funding without losing his independence. Today we face exceptional challenges in a truly complex world which is heterogeneous, multipolar, globalized, full of inevitable conflicts that need to be solved in a peaceful way.