Annual Report - Chatham House

wider Caribbean, looking at policy options over the
next five years. We have also started a United States
Discussion Group with regular meetings addressed by
visiting speakers. In time, we hope to appoint a Head
of Americas Programme to coordinate the work of the
three components and expand the research done by
each one.
We have also made progress in the second task — links
with research centres. With the Centre of International
Studies at Cambridge University, we have put together
a proposal for joint work on China in three areas:
economics, the environment and security. Sufficient
funding has been secured to allow us to start the
project and we hope to have the first research staff in
post by the end of the year, with the person appointed
to Chatham House heading up our Asia Programme.
We have also begun conversations with colleges of
London University on the possibility of joint initiatives
in the area of postgraduate teaching. This will be a
completely new venture for Chatham House and one
that opens up exciting possibilities.
Modernization of what we do is taking many forms.
Our new website was launched in April and members
now have their own dedicated zone, which gives them
privileged access to Chatham House products. We
have also created a new category of web member for
those unable to attend Chatham House in person. Last
but not least, we have undertaken the refurbishment
of the fourth floor where many of our research staff
and administrators are located. This work will be
finished in early October, and we hope to do the same
to the third floor in 2004.
Improving the way we put our message across has
been a constant theme. The regular parliamentary
briefings have become an important vehicle of
communication between research staff and MPs. The
monthly Newsletter was launched in October, and
members have been very appreciative of its new
format and content. The relaunched website will also
be crucial to our efforts in this area. Our Briefing
Papers are now produced by individual research
programmes, rather than under central direction, and
we hope this will lead to a closer targeting of the
relevant audience. We also carried out a re-imaging
exercise with new letterheads, business cards and
publication designs.
In order to bring in new members, we strengthened
the membership department and now have staff
dedicated to recruiting both corporate and individual
members. We have been successful in attracting
additional major corporate members as well as new
individual members, but less so in attracting new
standard corporate members. This is an area where we
will have to work very hard in future. During the year
we held two receptions for new members, including a
tour of the library, and these were much appreciated
by those who attended.
Completing this agenda will take time and cannot
be done in one year. A teaching programme, for
example, could not start before 2003/4 at the
earliest and it will take several years before all the
new research programmes are fully established.
New ideas are under consideration all the time,
many of them emanating from staff or Council
members. All this makes my job very rewarding, but
we must guard against becoming overstretched.
Our resources — physical, financial and human — are
limited and our first duty is to make the best use of
what we already have.
Last year I ended my review by paying tribute to the
quality of the staff at Chatham House. I would like to
end by doing so again. Staff have responded
magnificently to the changes introduced over the past
year, and the forces of inertia which one might expect
to be a significant barrier in a long-established
institution such as Chatham House have not been
apparent. We have lost a few valued members of staff
during the year, but we have recruited others who
have been quick to bring new ideas and energy to this
much-loved and prestigious institution.
Professor V Bulmer-Thomas
The Royal Institute of International Affairs — Annual Report 2001-2002 3