Think Tanks and Civil Societies Program

The Think Tanks and Civil Societies Program (TTCSP) is a non-profit program at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, PA. TTCSP was established at the Foreign Policy Research Institute in 1989. The director is James McGann. The program conducts research on policy institutes around the world, and maintains a database of approximately 6,300 think tanks from across the world.

The TTCSP was established at the Foreign Policy Research Institute in 1989. It began with its focus on think tanks in the US. In the 1990s the Program became increasingly global as a result of the political and economic transformation that took place in Central and Eastern Europe.R. Kent Weaver of the Brookings Institution and James McGann of the Foreign Policy Research Institute were asked to help conceptualize what became the Global Development Network, a World Bank sponsored conference in Barcelona, Spain. This resulted in the publication Think Tanks and Civil Societies: Catalysts for Ideas and Action in 2000. In 2008, the TTCSP moved to the International Relations Program at the University of Pennsylvania.

McGann and the Program publish the annual Global Go To Think Tank Index. As of 2010, the Index is based on a three-phase survey whose participants include politicians, scientists, think-tank donors, and think tanks.