The
Institute for Humane Studies (IHS) is a
non-profit organizationA nonprofit organization is an organization that does not distribute its surplus funds to owners or shareholders, but instead uses them to help pursue its goals . Examples of NPOs include charities , trade unions, and public arts organizations...
based on classical liberal ideas that assists students at the undergraduate and graduate levels. It acts as a talent scout, identifying, developing, and supporting the brightest young students with classical liberal ideas who are seeking careers as academics or intellectuals. Each year, IHS awards over $600,000 in scholarships to students from universities around the world.
The Institute for Humane Studies was founded in 1961 by Floyd "Baldy" Harper as a successor to his projects for the
William Volker FundThe William Volker Fund, which was active from 1932 to 1965, was a charitable foundation established to promote and disseminate ideas on free-market economics...
, for which he had worked previously.
The
Institute for Humane Studies (IHS) is a
non-profit organizationA nonprofit organization is an organization that does not distribute its surplus funds to owners or shareholders, but instead uses them to help pursue its goals . Examples of NPOs include charities , trade unions, and public arts organizations...
based on classical liberal ideas that assists students at the undergraduate and graduate levels. It acts as a talent scout, identifying, developing, and supporting the brightest young students with classical liberal ideas who are seeking careers as academics or intellectuals. Each year, IHS awards over $600,000 in scholarships to students from universities around the world.
The Institute for Humane Studies was founded in 1961 by Floyd "Baldy" Harper as a successor to his projects for the
William Volker FundThe William Volker Fund, which was active from 1932 to 1965, was a charitable foundation established to promote and disseminate ideas on free-market economics...
, for which he had worked previously. The IHS inherited Volker's staff, approach, and the strategy of its directors, Loren Miller and Herb Cornuelle. Other founding members, many of whom had been associated with the Volker Fund as well, included Leonard P. Liggio, George Resch, Kenneth S. Templeton, Jr., and Dr. Neil McLeod; and among the earliest business supporters of the IHS were R. C. Hoiles, founder of
Freedom CommunicationsFreedom Communications, Inc., headquartered in Irvine, California, is a media company which owns more than 100 daily and weekly newspapers in the United States, with a combined daily circulation of nearly one million subscribers, and also operates over seventy local news websites...
, J. Howard Pew, a president of Sun Oil Company and a founder of the Pew Charitable Trusts,
Howard BuffettHoward Homan Buffett was an Omaha, Nebraska businessman and four-term Republican United States Representative....
, William L. Law, and Pierre Goodrich, who later established the
Liberty Fund.
For many years, IHS had an extensive book and monograph publishing effort, and published the magazine
Literature of Liberty: A Review of Contemporary Liberal Thought from 1980-82 (originally published by the
Cato InstituteThe Cato Institute is a pro-free market, libertarian think tank headquartered in Washington, D.C.The Institute's stated mission is "to broaden the parameters of public policy debate to allow consideration of the traditional American principles of limited government, individual liberty, free...
). Prior to its move to Virginia, it ended its publishing.
Based for many years in
Menlo Park, CaliforniaMenlo Park is an affluent city in San Mateo County, in the San Francisco Bay Area of California. It is located at latitude 37°29' North, longitude 122°9' East. Menlo Park had 29,964 inhabitants as of the 2007 U.S. Census.-History:...
, the IHS moved to
Fairfax, VirginiaThis article refers to the independent city of Fairfax, Va. For the surrounding unincorporated area of Fairfax County with a Fairfax postal address, please see Fairfax County, Virginia...
in 1985 and associated with
George Mason UniversityGeorge Mason University is a public university based in unincorporated Fairfax County, Virginia, United States, south of and adjacent to the city of Fairfax...
. It is currently on GMU's
ArlingtonArlington County is a county of about 210,000 residents in the Commonwealth of Virginia. It is located directly across the Potomac River to the southwest of Washington, D.C. Formerly part of the District of Columbia, the land now composing the county was retroceded to Virginia on July 9, 1846, in...
campus.
For decades the IHS has run
seminars for university students from around the world. They include general seminars on classical liberal thought, as well as seminars focused on topics such as war and peace, globalization, tolerance, environmentalism, and other topics. Specialized seminars are also offered for students in journalism, film, and literature and for students who are planning careers in academia.
In 2004, IHS launched
aBetterEarth.org, a student-oriented website that states its goal as exploring "pragmatic approaches to solving environmental problems." The site discusses "alternative environmental approaches, including locally based 'eco-innovation,' outcome-based regulations, quasi-market pricing strategies, corporate and individual stewardship, property rights enforcement as a means of protecting the environment from polluters, and the cultivation of environmental aesthetics." The site criticizes traditional environmentalists for being anti-capitalist and for pushing counterproductive government regulations. In 2005 IHS added
aWorldConnected.org, which promotes a cosmopolitan free-trade approach to globalization issues and criticizes cultural and economic nationalism. IHS has also produced a series of
interactive games to illustrate the functioning of spontaneous orders.
The IHS receives funding from a base of individual donors, as well as from several classical liberal, libertarian and conservative foundations, including the
Sarah Scaife FoundationThe Sarah Scaife Foundation is one of the American Scaife Foundations. It is controlled by Richard Mellon Scaife. The foundation does not award grants to individuals. It concentrates its efforts towards causes focused on public policy at a national and international level...
, the
Koch Family FoundationsKoch Family Foundations is the informal name for a group of charities in the United States of America associated with Fred C. Koch and his family. The most prominent of these is the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation.The Charles G...
, Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, and the
Carthage FoundationThe Carthage Foundation is one of the American Scaife Foundations. It is controlled by Richard Mellon Scaife. The foundation does not award grants to individuals. It concentrates its efforts towards causes focused on public policy at a national and international level. From 1985 to 2003 the...
.
The IHS has inspired a number of organizations around the world to emulate its activities, including the
Centre for Civil Society in India, the
Imani Center in Ghana, and the
Institute for Economic Studies - Europe in France.
As of 2007, the president of the IHS was
Marty ZupanMarty Zupan is president of the Institute for Humane Studies. She joined IHS in 1989 as a vice president to help build new programs for aspiring policymakers, journalists, and filmmakers...
, formerly editor of Reason magazine.