Bates Gill

Bates Gill

"The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) is proud to announce the appointment of Dr Bates Gill as its next Director. Dr Gill was unanimously nominated by the SIPRI Governing Board, the Research Staff Collegium and the staff unions. His official appointment was made by the Government of Sweden on 15 March 2007. When he formally joins SIPRI in September 2007, Dr Gill will become the sixth Director in the Institute’s 40-year history. In this position he succeeds Alyson J. K. Bailes, who will move to Reykjavik in August to become a visiting professor at the University of Iceland...

"Dr Gill currently holds the Freeman Chair in China Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, DC. He has previously held positions at the Brookings Institution, where he was the inaugural Director of the Center for Northeast Asian Policy Studies, and at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies of the Monterey Institute of International Studies. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the International Institute for Strategic Studies, and has consulted for a number of multinational corporations and government agencies. From 1993 to 1997, he initiated and led the East Asia Arms Control and Security Project at SIPRI.

"Dr Gill has a long record of research and publication on international and regional security issues, particularly regarding arms control, non-proliferation, strategic nuclear relations, peacekeeping and military-technical development. In recent years, this research has broadened to encompass other security-related trends in the post-cold war world, including multilateral security organizations and the impact of domestic politics and development on the foreign and security policies of states. This work has resulted in several books and more than 120 other publications, which include monographs, chapters, journal articles, essays, magazine columns and opinion pieces. His most recent book, published in February 2007, is entitled Rising Star: China’s New Security Diplomacy (Brookings Press).

"Dr Gill will be the first US citizen to hold the SIPRI Directorship. Commenting on his background he said, ‘I hope to bring experience and expertise which bridges across the Atlantic, across the Pacific, between Europe and Asia, and between the developed and developing worlds.’

"Dr Gill received his PhD in Foreign Affairs from the Woodrow Wilson Department of Government and Foreign Affairs at the University of Virginia. He has lived more than two years in China and Taiwan, and more than five years in Europe (in France, Sweden and Switzerland), and has carried out research-related travel in more than 40 countries. Dr Gill speaks, reads and writes Chinese, English and French. He is married to Dr Sarah Palmer, a virologist."

• Director, National Committee on United States-China Relations
• International Advisory Board, Geneva Centre for Security Policy