Project on UAP Studies and International Security

The Project on UAP Studies and International Security at the CUNY Graduate Center’s Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies supports academic research and activities at the intersection of international relations and the emerging field of UAP Studies. The project, directed by Dr. Eli Karetny, seeks to create a collaborative research space for UAP investigators to integrate their findings with interdisciplinary knowledge from the social sciences, and to provide new platforms to share this work with other academic researchers and the public.

The Project plans to support visiting scholars conducting research on UAP, develop graduate courses in the subfield of UAP Studies and international relations, organize academic conferences on relevant subjects, and host public events with prominent figures from government and academia doing work on UAP.

The Ralph Bunche Institute’s UAP Project takes as its starting point the June 25, 2021, report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence titled Preliminary Assessment; Unidentified Aerial Phenomena. This Pentagon report marks a turning point in the official US government’s responses to the UAP issue. After seven decades of denying the existence of UFOs/UAP, the government now approaches these phenomena as a national security challenge, and a subject requiring serious scientific study. The Institute’s scholarly reputation for promoting research on multilateral approaches to international problems provides a framework for thinking about UAP not only as a threat to national security, but as a systemic challenge to international order demanding greater institutionalized cooperation.