An institute exploring the ideas we need for our changing world

Ideas Matter

Nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come. The challenges that inspired the creation of the institute have only become more urgent over time: the test of democratic governance; the marvelous possibilities of AI, yet the risks it poses and the growing inequality it exacerbates; the upending of the old world order as China re-emerges on center stage; the planetary crisis of climate change. These challenges compel us to reconsider the foundational ideas that our contemporary institutions embody, including what it means to be human. These challenges and the questions they provoke have become the pillars of our work.

History

In 2010, Nicolas Berggruen and Nathan Gardels sat down with a group of scholars, business leaders, and political veterans in California to contemplate the economic and political stresses caused by the global financial crisis, the widespread perception of failing political institutions and Western democracies, and the question of how China’s rise would affect international cooperation and governance in the 21st century. The ideas that emerged led to the formation of the Berggruen Institute (BI)—a global network of thinkers that devise systemic solutions to the world’s challenges.

BI’s activities and research focus on themes such as:

Recognizing that the co-evolution of humans and technology represents a defining transformation of our era, the Institute incubated Antikythera to explore the scale-shifting effects of planetary computation on human life.

Together, these themes ask how we should rethink our governing institutions and systems to best support flourishing relations between humans, technology, and the planet.

Diverse and purposeful, our activities work to foster dialogue and the development of ideas, from keeping open channels of communication through exchanges between Chinese President Xi Jinping and our global council of former heads of government, tech executives, and global intellectuals to promoting citizens’ assemblies in Europe. In California, we are working to integrate deliberative institutions into the direct democracy process and to engage leading Silicon Valley entrepreneurs with the state’s governor in the idea of sharing wealth in the digital age through universal basic capital.

In the cultural realm, Studio B is networking frontier technologists with Hollywood auteurs and science fiction authors who will shape the next narrative. Similarly, the Future Humans program placed philosophers and artists in tech labs to interact with the engineers of innovation. Proxima Kósmos explores the possibilities of life on other planets, while Future Wunderkammer designs speculative relics from the future. Launched as a weekly podcast, Futurology inspires new thinking by convening leading scientists, philosophers, technologists, and policymakers to imagine the future not only as a challenge but as a possibility to be shaped. Hosted by Berggruen Institute President Dawn Nakagawa, the show has tackled topics from planetary governance and machine intelligence to cultural transformation.

Berggruen Institute China (BIC) at Peking University promotes cross-cultural research in Frontier Science, Technology, & Philosophy, while Berggruen Institute Europe (BIE) gathers policymakers and political thinkers, artists and architects, authors and scholars, scientists, and technologists to explore Europe as Planetary Laboratory. BIE also hosts the China-Europe Residency Program, which provides an intellectual bridge between East and West.

Publishing is a crucial tool in Berggruen Institute’s exploration of these themes. BI launched the digital platform WorldPost in 2014, which delved into geopolitical power shifts in the post-American global order; how to renovate governance and democracy in the digital age; and advances in genetics, biosciences and artificial intelligence through a big-picture, societal lens. This content first appeared on HuffPost and then in 2018,The Washington Post exclusively published WorldPost op-eds, features, and videos. Next, BI partnered with the University of California Press on the book series “Great Transformations,” which has included the recent Renovating Democracy: Governing in the Age of Globalization and Digital Capitalism by our founders Nicolas Berggruen and Nathan Gardels. BI’s latest and celebrated platform is the independently published Noema Magazine, an award-winning magazine which shares new perspectives and synthesizes ideas from BI’s growing community of thought leaders.

Wanting to commit more robustly to thinkers whose ideas have shaped our world, the Berggruen Institute initiated the annual Berggruen Prize for Philosophy and Culture. This $1 million award is chosen by an independent jury and given to a thinker whose ideas have led us to find direction, wisdom, and improved self-understanding in a transforming world, and celebrates the significance of philosophy to society. Laureates have included Charles Taylor (2016); Onora O’Neill (2017); Martha Nussbaum (2018); Ruth Bader Ginsburg (2019); Paul Farmer (2020); Peter Singer (2021); Kojin Karatani (2022); Patricia Hill Collins (2023); and Michael Sandel (2025).

The Institute also supports younger, emerging thinkers—some with bold, relatively untested ideas—through its Berggruen Fellowship and programmatic incubation. Since 2015, Berggruen Fellows have published more than 50 books; written op-eds for media including The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Financial Times; contributed articles to the Institute’s Noema Magazine; authored white papers; provided congressional testimony; and served as expert consultants to the UN, the WHO, and other governing bodies with global impact. The Institute's academic fellowship partners have included Harvard, NYU, Oxford, Peking University, Tsinghua University, Stanford, University of Southern California, and Università Ca’ Foscari.

The Berggruen Research Center at Peking University was established in December 2018. Located at the heart of Peking University, the Center engages with outstanding thinkers on a global platform to examine, share, and develop ideas that address planetary challenges in times of profound transformation.

Intellectual themes for research programs are focused on Frontier Science, Technology, and Philosophy; Creative Futures; and Ancient Wisdom and Planetary Governance. The Center funds a fellowship program, supports publications that feature its major research focuses, hosts activities such as lectures, workshops, and symposia, and produces multimedia outreach programs.

Our Los Angeles center is the global media hub of the Berggruen Institute where we publish Noema and the Futurology Podcast. It also hosts Studio B, which produces that podcast, and in partnership with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, brings together frontier thinkers from science, technology and philosophy with Hollywood creatives as a way to influence that platform for storytelling so influential in setting the meta-narrative.

Studio B is a founding sponsor of the Creative Coalition on AI. California is our most active center in promoting the idea of “participation without populism” through The Think Long Committee for California and Engaged California, an AI-assisted platform that enables the public to deliberate pressing state issues at scale.

The Berggruen Prize for Philosophy and Culture, as well as the Berggruen Essay Competition, operate out of the L.A. outpost.

Europe’s exposure to the limits of the nation state makes it a unique laboratory to explore our planetary future. The Berggruen Institute Europe attracts philosophers and political thinkers, artists and architects, scientists and technologists, to develop and promote long-term answers to the main challenges of the 21st century by developing ideas that emerge from Europe and address the world.

As we celebrate our 15th year, the Berggruen Institute reflects on a decade and a half of asking the most urgent questions of our time—and evolving our methods to meet them. What began as an effort to improve governance at all levels has grown into a global laboratory for ideas, one that bridges philosophy, policy, technology, and culture to illuminate possible futures.