The Global Leadership Initiative was led by a group of academic researchers and students who attend, monitor and conduct real time policy analysis at major global summits such as the Group of Seven (G7), the Group of Twenty (G20), the International Labour Organisation’s Governing Body meeting (ILO), the International Land Coalition’s Biennial Global Forum, The Architecture Sans Frontières’s International General Assembly meeting (ASF) and others.

The GLI published small articles and blogs that offered credible academic analysis of global summits and their implications for global politics. In particular, the GLI focused on the furtherance of needed leadership (or lack thereof), holding world leaders to account, but also stressing new opportunities and past successes.

The GLI was based within the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Sheffield and was first initiated by academics from the Department of Politics and the School of East Asian Studies who attended the 2013 G20 summit in St Petersburg and discovered that there was a significant gap in informed analysis of the topics under discussion. Academic experts and student policy analysts were therefore sought out to provide media briefs and to clarify policy issues.

To fill this gap, the GLI sought to fulfil two aims. First, the GLI provided up-to-date and real-time policy analysis of global decision-making at the highest level, holding global leaders to account. Second, the GLI offered an exciting opportunity for high-achieving students (undergraduates and taught postgraduates) from the Faculty to attend summits and to collaborate with academic researchers.

This was an opportunity for students to gain first-hand experience in international policy debates, to attend press conferences and to produce outputs visible to an international audience thereby enhancing their research skills and employability. On these page you will find examples of the analysis they produced.