The Common Security Forum (CSF) was established in 1991 as an independent, international network of scholars and policymakers brought together with the purpose of understanding the transformation of individual and transnational security.
The Forum’s aim is to address fundamental issues in relation to common security and globalization, and to encourage policy dialogue and dissemination of information about different dimensions of security - political, economic, environmental, and human. It seeks to create a network of policy participants and scholars concerned with peace and security, conflict prevention and the protection of human rights.
CSF activities have been coordinated at the Centre for History and Economics, King’s College, University of Cambridge. The network has also involved other institutions, including the Centre for Development Economics at the Delhi School of Economics (Delhi), the Swedish Institute for Future Studies (Stockholm), the Strategic Peace and International Affairs Research Institute - SPIRIT - at Tokai University (Tokyo), the Global Equity Initiative at Harvard University, the Institute of Oriental Studies at the Russian Academy of Sciences (Moscow), the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies (Cambridge, Mass.), FAFO (Norway), and the China Medical Board. Work has also been done in cooperation with UNICEF, the Commission for Human Security and the Global Commission on Migration, and with other national and international bodies.
The individuals who constituted the network have moved between the worlds of scholarship, national policy, and international policy, and included researchers based in Bangladesh, Canada, India, Japan, Montenegro, Nigeria, Russia, South Africa, Sweden, the UK, the US and elsewhere. Participants came from over 56 different countries and at least as many different backgrounds.
The Common Security Forum was founded with the support of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and has been supported by the Pew Charitable Trusts and the Rockefeller Foundation.