History of Pardee

In 1980, Dr. Hughes brought this work to the University of Denver’s Josef Korbel School of Global and Public Affairs (formerly, the Graduate School of International Studies), where the International Futures (IFs) system continues to mature and expand.  

A key turning point arose in the early 2000s with a partnership at a RAND Santa Monica meeting between Dr. Hughes and Frederick S. Pardee. It led to the establishment of the Frederick S. Pardee Center for International Futures at the Josef Korbel School in 2006. The creation of the Pardee Center institutionalized Dr. Hughes’ life work and enhanced the IFs system, leading to its institutionalization at the Frederick S. Pardee Center for International Futures in 2007.  

Over its first 5 years, funded by Mr. Pardee, the Center focused on model development and published a 5-volume series titled Patterns of Potential Human Progress.   

From 2011 to 2023, the Pardee Center experienced a decade of growth, marked by an expanding portfolio of policy-relevant research and deepening strategic partnerships.  

Through initiatives like the Global Trends Reports with the U.S. National Intelligence Council, the Minerva Research Initiative with the Department of Defense, and the Diplometrics Project, the Center tackled issues ranging from political instability to geopolitical power dynamics.  

Its collaboration with the Institute for Security Studies (ISS) and the African Union Development Agency (AUDA-NEPAD) on the African Futures Project helped inform long-term strategic planning across the continent. The Center also worked with UNDP and UN Women on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) analysis, helping countries forecast progress toward SDG targets, and partnered with Action Against Hunger to model global burdens of Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM) in children under five. 

In Latin America and the Caribbean, the Center collaborated with the Inter-American Development Bank and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) to explore development trends and challenges like the “middle-income trap.” Work with the U.S. Army Future Studies Group provided support for U.S. military foresight, while USAID regional collaborations informed development strategies in countries like Uganda, Ethiopia, Guatemala, and Honduras. These projects, often resulting in joint reports, policy briefs, and peer-reviewed publications, showed the Center’s ability to bridge rigorous academic research with real-world policy impact, paving the way for the Center’s future. 

In October 2023, recognizing our organizational growth and our expanding contribution to the University’s research efforts through various collaborations over the years, DU officially named us an Institute, a title granted to the University’s leading research organizations.  

The foundation of our work remains the IFs system—an open-source integrated assessment model enabling policymakers, researchers, and the public to engage in strategic thinking around global development challenges. Mr. Pardee’s early investment made DU the institutional home of IFs. Now, with nearly $10 million in new contributions from Mr. Pardee’s estate since 2020, we are positioned to expand our portfolio of tools, datasets, and applications, with the opportunity to amplify policy relevance and real-world applications of our growing body of work. These gifts demand timely, deliberate, and strategic investment, reinforcing the importance of leveraging this 2025 strategic planning mandate to maximize their impact.  

Through Mr. Pardee’s gifts, we also receive endowment support annually, alongside continued institutional support from the Korbel School. With an operating budget that exceeds our research expenditures, these additional investments in our infrastructure and capacity enable us to operate as a standalone, mission-driven organization, not defined by a singular partnership or project, but rather by the entirety of our body of work.  

From this legacy and through enduring financial support, we continue to mature as an organization, steady in our pursuit of research excellence and operational discipline to support effective data-driven policy design and long-term thinking. We view this trajectory as both a validation of our model and a roadmap for continued growth, always with a focus on delivering strategic insights for a more prepared future.