In a changing and challenging landscape for organizations working in global health and development, the Population Council is embarking on a new strategic direction to ensure continued impact. Over the next few years, the Council will evolve into a new organizational model—one that enables country-led decision-making on local research priorities; advances independent thinking and research on urgent population issues (and issues affecting specific sub-populations); and strengthens biomedical research and sexual and reproductive health (SRH) product development. Read more on the Council’s strategic direction here.
As the Council begins this transition, Co-Presidents Jim Sailer and Pat Vaughan share the vision behind the strategic shift and what to expect from the Council over the next few years.
The Council is a nearly 75-year-old institution—in a time of great uncertainty for non-profits, how are you planning for the Council’s future?
Pat: I want to be clear that the Population Council is here to stay. We will continue to do the high-quality research across our social science and biomedical work that we are known for. We are building our future on the strengths that we have developed and cultivated over the years, but we need to evolve and change—and that’s the process we’re going through now.
Can you share more about that? What is changing about how the Council operates?
Pat: I’ll start off with one way, which is the Council’s international presence. For some time, we have been adjusting how we work in countries for several reasons, including our country leaders’ expertise in local and regional research priorities, donors’ preferring to fund local organizations, and a difficult regulatory environment for international NGOs. While not new, the current funding environment has intensified some of these factors and accelerated the pace of our transition.
What we are doing now is transitioning some of our international offices to become fully independent, local organizations. Independence from the Council doesn’t mean we won’t work in these countries, but our involvement will change. We’ll operate as an equal partner with the newly established local institutions—as part of that, we’re exploring forming a network with them to foster and promote research excellence and collaboration in a way that is mutually beneficial.
Jim: I’ll add that, as you look at the Council’s history and the various eras of global development, the Council has worked in and across countries through different kinds of collaborations—from individual researchers set up in a few countries, to branch and affiliated offices, to partnerships with other organizations. We have also exited countries as capacity has increased or as funding priorities have shifted.
So, yes, this is a big change for us as we transition away from operating international offices. It wasn’t an easy decision, particularly as many of us—me and Pat included—have spent our Council careers working with staff across offices. But we see it as a critical part of our evolution as an organization—and is responsive to the changes we’re seeing in the field.
What is the vision for the Council’s research model going forward?
Jim: We are creating a research institute with a global cadre of researchers from a multitude of disciplines—public health, economics, demography, epidemiology—who will produce cutting-edge, high-impact research on urgent issues that disadvantage populations across nations and continents. Issues like educational equity and excellence, migration, or the impacts of artificial intelligence on sexual and reproductive health and rights.
What’s critical to the success of this model is a global lens—we want and expect researchers to be based all over the world—and the independence to determine the direction of our work and maintain scientific rigor. Our vision is to support and empower our researchers to really stake out some bold new territory, free from external influence and biases. That’s exciting for us to be able to foster research in this way.
Pat: To add to what Jim said, an important part of this model is allowing researchers the freedom to think and not having somebody tell them how they should approach a problem—or spend all their time fundraising. We want to support an environment where researchers can think and collaborate freely—because that’s at risk right now—and it’s where we think the real creativity, the inventiveness, the breakthroughs can come.
How does the Council’s Center for Biomedical Research (CBR) factor into this model?
Jim: It remains a crucial part of the Council. We’ve recently announced new funding for CBR and will have some more funding and partnership announcements in the coming months.
The Council has a very proud history of developing products that support people’s choices and meet their needs at different points in their lives. Contraceptive methods, HIV prevention technologies—these are lifesaving and life-changing products for hundreds of millions of people.
We also need new products to meet the challenges of the 21st century. This involves new forms of contraception, more multipurpose products that provide contraception and STI prevention, and products to prevent conditions like preterm birth, which has some of the starkest outcome differences between high- and low-income settings of any global health indicator. These are issues we want to address for the whole world.
Pat: Agreed. And not only do we want to, we have the talent and determination to achieve our goals. There are very few institutions anywhere that have delivered as successfully as the Population Council to develop sexual and reproductive health products that meet people’s needs. And the innovative and solution-oriented approach for our biomedical work is very much aligned—and complementary—with how we’ll approach our social science research.
These are some big changes—what do the next few years look like for the Council?
Jim: One thing I’d like to say first is that these changes don’t come without hardship. We are reducing our staff because the funding isn’t there. We believe in what we’re doing with transitioning some of our international offices to independence, but we can’t support every office in this way and will be closing some. This is tough.
Pat: In this environment, we have to be forward-looking, but Jim is right that we are facing circumstances that have moved us in a direction, probably more quickly than we would have on our own. That said, we feel confident in our vision and direction.
So, over the next year or two, yes, we’re going to be a smaller organization. At the same time, we’ll be on our way to establishing local research institutions in several countries, which is something we’re really excited about. And we will continue to deliver high-impact research on emerging health and population issues and develop new and better SRH products. That’s our commitment, and that’s what you’ll continue to see from the Council.