National Program

The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) is a truly national organization, with more than one-third of its members based outside of New York and Washington. The goal of the National Program is to energize foreign policy discussions nationwide and encourage a broader debate on international affairs and U.S. foreign policy.

The National Program is centered around small foreign policy seminars based on the research of CFR fellows or CFR-sponsored Independent Task Forces. The purpose of the seminars is to engage members and other leaders in CFR's work and expose the fellows to perspectives in select U.S. cities, including Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, Minneapolis, Phoenix, San Diego, San Francisco, Santa Fe, and Seattle as well as internationally in London, England, and Tokyo, Japan. The seminars are complemented by local roundtables that build on the expertise of CFR members and community leaders; a national book club series that focuses on classics and important recent works in international relations; and large public events cosponsored with local foreign policy organizations to disseminate CFR's intellectual work or to expose a broader group to CFR fellows. In addition, the National Program links CFR's membership through live and on-demand teleconferences and webcasts of New York and Washington meetings; videoconferencing from its state-of-the-art facility, the Peter G. Peterson Center for International Studies; and a biweekly teleconference call series, chaired by Vice President Irina Faskianos.

The centerpiece of the program is the annual National Conference. Held at the CFR's headquarters in New York, the National Conference brings together members from across the country and around the world for two days of discussions and networking with policymakers and opinion shapers. The National Program also arranges talks at colleges and universities, editorial board briefings, and local media appearances for CFR fellows. Additionally, it makes the audio and video streams of on-the-record New York and Washington CFR meetings available to the general public on www.cfr.org.