The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and Omidyar Network have announced grants totaling more than $40 million to establish five multidisciplinary academic centers dedicated to reimagining the relationships among markets, governments, and people.

The centers will support scholars in investigating alternatives to neoliberalism—which has dominated economic and political debates with its free-market fundamentalism and growth-at-all-costs approach to economic and social policy—and find systemic solutions that build a more equitable and resilient society based on a new set of economic values. The Hewlett Foundation will fund the Harvard Kennedy School’s Reimagining the Economy Project, which will focus on reshaping economic narratives by taking a more active and empirical approach to analyzing data from local labor markets; Howard University’s Center for an Equitable and Sustainable Society, which will study the causes and effects of racial and economic inequities in order to identify effective solutions; Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Economy and Society, which will explore the benefits of past versions of liberalism and foster debate to develop solutions to neoliberalism’s shortcomings; and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Shaping the Future of Work Program, which will analyze the erosion of job quality and labor market opportunity for workers without college degrees and consider institutional, technological, and policy solutions. And Omidyar Network will support a center at the Santa Fe Institute, which will use mathematical and computational theory to study the emergence of alternative political economies.

The Ford Foundation also will make grants to institutions in Africa, Asia, and Latin America that will be announced later this year, while the Open Society Foundations will explore how best to support heterodox economic thinking through the Open Society University Network, a global partnership of educational institutions.

“Neoliberalism’s anti-government, free-market fundamentalism is simply not suited for today’s economy and society, but what comes next is still not fully developed,” said Hewlett Foundation president Larry Kramer. “This joint effort reflects our shared interest in replacing outdated 20th-century thinking—individualistic versus collectivist, central control versus free markets, liberty versus equality, and the like—with new ideas that can lead to broader economic justice and prosperity for people around the world. This is a first step to support forward-thinking scholars, students, and thought leaders who can break out of a patently failing neoliberal paradigm, with its ossified left-right divides, and help shape a bold new vision for what people should expect from their governments and economies.”

“Now, more than ever, it is imperative that we prioritize interdisciplinary scholarship to update our knowledge of complexity to better understand our economy—the ultimate complex, dynamic system,” said Omidyar Network CEO Mike Kubzansky. “We are pleased to join the Hewlett Foundation and our other partners in supporting a new cadre of academic leaders, and a new epoch in the study of economics and its intersection with a diverse range of fields. Together, we can change the ideas that will change the world.”

(Photo credit: David Mark via Pixabay)