University of Miami and RAND Corporation Announce Partnership to Restructure Dante B. Fascell North-South Center

CORAL GABLES, FL—The University of Miami and the RAND Corporation, a nonprofit research organization, today announced the formation of a new partnership to restructure the Dante B. Fascell North-South Center based at the University.

“The University of Miami is proud to partner with the prestigious and highly regarded RAND Corporation,” said UM President Donna E. Shalala. “This relationship benefits the University, the global community it serves, and Miami-Dade County in general as it is seen as the geographic and economic gateway to the Americas. This new partnership will broaden and deepen needed economic and trade policy analysis for policy makers and other decision makers.”

“RAND and the University of Miami will combine our strengths to revitalize the North-South Center and make it an important source of research and analysis on Latin American issues,” said RAND President and CEO James A. Thomson. “We will serve governments, non-profit organizations and the private sector in a venture that will take advantage of the experienced and talented researchers and professors at both our institutions.”

The focus of the North-South Center will be significantly broadened, but most of its initiatives will continue to focus on Latin America and the Caribbean. The Center will continue to examine the relationship of the United States within the hemisphere. In addition, other areas of expertise will include economic analysis and trade, healthcare and medical research, environmental programs, education, infrastructure and security—areas of tremendous strength for both UM and RAND.

RAND has a 55-year history of analyzing international issues, and has offices in the Netherlands, Britain, Germany, and Qatar, in addition to its U.S. headquarters in Santa Monica, CA, and offices in Washington, DC and Pittsburgh, PA.

“With its global recognition as an effective provider of research and analysis, the RAND partnership will broaden the scope of the North-South Center's mission and will integrate more fully into the academic structure of the Schools and Colleges at the University,” said UM Executive Vice President and Provost Luis Glaser. “The University is committed to examining the Caribbean and Latin America, and our commitment to RAND furthers this mission.”

“From the perspective of being a lifelong Miamian as well as a trustee at RAND, I just couldn't be more excited about this newly created relationship,” said Pedro José “Joe” Greer, an assistant dean at the UM School of Medicine. “The University and RAND working hand-in-hand to produce objective analysis of Latin-American policy will dramatically influence not only the region but the world.”

The North-South Center was created in 1984 to serve primarily as a national and hemispheric resource for the development of trade, economic, and migration policy. The Center's funding was first authorized by the U.S. Congress by the North-South Center Act of 1990. It has received federal funding each year since then through annual appropriations, and now is a part of the budget of the State Department. The Act authorized the United States Information Agency to “provide for the operation in Florida of an educational institution to be known as the North-South Center, through arrangements with public, educational or other nonprofit institutions.”

The University announced in August that it would be restructuring the North-South Center as it currently existed.

RAND's work with the University of Miami will expand on the broad spectrum of Latin American policy research that RAND has pursued for years.

The management team for the North-South Center has not been named. Top-level administrators of the Center will be jointly recruited by UM and RAND.

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