Global Currents Blog

CGS has spent the past year developing connections with think tanks through increased engagement with thought leaders at the On Think Tanks (OTT) School for Thinktankers’ conferences. Dr. Tonini, Associate Director of The Center for Global Studies, reflects on the 2025 and 2026 annual School for Thinktankers’ conferences and provides insights on prominent scholars, projects, and research in the field of think tank creation and strategy. 

The Center for Global Studies (CGS) hosted a successful two-day Global Policy Forum (GPF) on April 14th and 15th, 2026. With almost 100 registrants, this forum spotlighted student presenters from over a dozen departments, covering academic areas such as political science, human rights, climate resilience, and sustainable development. 

In the Fall 2025 semester, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) Center for Global Studies (CGS) focused its programming lens on the Global South, hosting nine lectures that collectively engaged various global challenges across broad geographical contexts, and diverse fields and scholarship.

Urbana, Illinois – The Center for Global Studies (CGS) at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign proudly celebrated the achievements of students from around the world during the 5th annual Reimagine Our Future sustainability competition held on December 6, 2025. CGS has supported the competition since its inception, advancing its mission to foster global perspectives on sustainability, climate resilience, and interdisciplinary innovation. 

This Memorial Day, CGS recognizes the contributions of faculty affiliate Dr. Scott Althaus and his involvement with Project Recover, which helps bring home World War II service members.

Recently, the International and Area Studies Library (IASL) at the University of Illinois pooled US Department of Education, Title VI National Resource Center funding from the Center for Global Studies, Center for African Studies, Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, and the Russian, East European, and Eurasian Center to make important historical newspapers available Open Access through the Global Press Archives' 2025 Area Studies Initiative.

The Center for Global Studies hosted prominent globalization scholar Professor Manfred Steger (Professor and Chair, Sociology, University of Hawai’i at Mānoa), co-sponsored by the Center for Advanced Study. On Monday, October 7th, Professor Steger gave a talk titled “Globalization at a Crossroads: Deglobalization or Reglobalization?” making a case that the world is in an era of reglobalization fueled by exponentially increasing “disembodied globalization.” 

The Center for Global Studies ran the International Studies Research Lab (ISRL) this summer, making its first full in-person session since the Covid-19 pandemic. This blog post summarizes the lab, its purpose, and highlights three of the eleven projects developed through the ISRL.