As times change, so must institutions. With the growth of Asia, the core public diplomacy mission of the East-West Center — promoting deeper understanding and relations among peoples of the Asia-Pacific — is more relevant than ever. Within that framework, the center’s priorities, programs, partnerships and products continually need to be reassessed and refreshed.

Historically, the center has readapted several times, including one fundamental change in governance structure. Mostly a student scholarship program in the 1960s, the center’s student numbers plummeted in the 1970s as funding was channeled into problem-oriented research institutes, each with in-house researchers and administrative staff. This model later also became unsustainable because of a precipitous drop in the federal funding contribution in the mid-1990s and the rise of specialized research institutes around the region.

In the past 15 years, through a series of action and strategic plans, the center refocused around a balanced, three-pillar approach. In education, the center created the Asia Pacific Leadership Program, a half-year course for up-and-coming young professionals. Leadership training also suffuses degree student programs and is currently expanding rapidly, with three new leadership courses established in the past year. Scholarships are now supported by multiple sources of funds.

In research, administration was slashed and a more flexible structure created, based on a relatively small core of project initiators and managers, supplemented by non-resident fellows and affiliates.

The center moved into new areas of policy-oriented work including human rights and justice, governance, philanthropy and higher education, while maintaining activities in critical areas such as climate change, aging, the Pacific islands, and the interaction of environmental change and public health. Senior researchers are expected to initiate projects and attract funding for them. Support for regional institutions, such as ASEAN and APEC, is stressed.

The center added a third pillar to build on Hawaii’s incredible comparative advantage as a meeting venue. From a small beginning, the center developed an extensive, highly-regarded suite of professional exchange and development programs for thought-leaders, including journalists and teachers. It also assumed a leadership role in attracting new activities to Hawaii, including the 2011 APEC Leaders Meeting and a just-concluded summit of Chinese and American philanthropists.

New initiatives have been constant, including the creation of a dynamic program office in Washington, the International Graduate Student Conference, a scholarship initiative for Okinawa, the large expansion of media-related programs, new policy-oriented publication series in Hawaii and Washington, election monitoring in the Pacific, the Asian International Justice Initiative, and an upcoming international media conference in Burma on the challenges of press freedom.

Rebooted as a public-private partnership, the center requires non-appropriated support for most programmatic activities while depending on federal appropriations for core support.

The most important product of the center is its 62,000 successful alumni. No other U.S.-based organization holds regular, biennial alumni conferences in the Asia-Pacific region where hundreds of alumni gather. This owes much to the welcoming Hawaii environment, which so many alumni recall with great fondness.

Looking forward, I envision leadership training for the Asia-Pacific region as the integrating theme. This century, like the last, will be a global one, but the center of power and influence will be across the Pacific rather than the Atlantic.

The region’s business, governments and academic/NGO (non-governmental organization) institutions will increasingly need individuals with leadership skills and global perspectives. Where better can this be done than in Hawaii? Its distance from major capitals makes it an almost neutral meeting site, and its Asia-Pacific population provides inspiration on how East and West can be successfully joined. Just as Hawaii is strategic in the geopolitical sense, it is also a strategic asset in the public diplomacy, people-to-people sense.

One thing is for sure — innovation can never stop, and the center must continuously demonstrate relevance in an increasingly important and complex region.