With the shift of economic power to Asia come new opportunities and new dangers for world order and for the region. To date, the international agenda and the rules of globalisation have been set largely by the United States and Europe. That handful of countries can no longer effectively make the decisions for the world on the pressing agenda of global issues: security, energy, environment, trade, finance, health, and migration. Yet the other institutions of global governance – international organizations, networks of government regulators, public-private partnerships, transnational civil society coalitions – remain underdeveloped and unrepresentative of Asia’s rising power. It is clear that in order to make the significant strides needed to improve effective decision making for the global agenda, we need a new approach to global governance.

Within this broad context, the Centre has mapped out two initial areas of research: the mechanisms of  global governance, and energy governance.