Additionally, graduates have served as commissioner-general of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency and of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.

[10][20][21] Rappard conceived the Graduate Institute as a way to draw on the deep pool of expertise in Geneva and to cement transatlantic ties.

[24] Funding from American philanthropic organizations, primarily the Rockefeller Foundation as part of its initiative to promote a scientific approach to international relations, continued until 1954.

[25][26] At the time, the Geneva Graduate Institute was "among the most important centres of scholarship" in international relations[27] alongside other schools, mostly located in Europe, that included the Institute of Higher International Studies in Paris, the Deutsche Hochschule für Politik (or German Academy for Politics) in Berlin, the Diplomatic Academy of Vienna, and the Walsh School of Foreign Service in the United States.

[27] The Geneva Graduate Institute's original mandate was based on a close working relationship with both the League of Nations and the International Labour Organization.

It was agreed that in exchange for training staff and delegates, the school would receive intellectual resources and diplomatic expertise (guest lecturers, etc.)

[29][30] They attracted scholars like Raymond Aron, René Cassin, Luigi Einaudi, John Kenneth Galbraith, G. P. Gooch, Gottfried Haberler, Friedrich von Hayek, Hersch Lauterpacht, Lord McNair, Gunnar Myrdal,[31] Harold Nicolson, Philip Noel Baker, Pierre Renouvin, Lionel Robbins, Jean-Rodolphe de Salis, Harold Laski, Eric Voegelin, Carlo Sforza, Jacob Viner, Quincy Wright and Martin Wight.

These schools were run by Oxford University international relations professor Alfred Zimmern, who also sat on the Committee of the Geneva Graduate Institute, and were funded by John D. Rockefeller, Jr. and several other wealthy American donors.

[35][36][37][38] The "Geneva Schools" or "Zimmern Schools," as they became known, were taught by leading scholars like Louis Eisenmann, Ernst Jäckh, Paul Mantoux, and Arnold J. Toynbee alongside a variety of "public men" such as Edvard Beneš, Lord David Cecil, Paul Hymans, Fridtjof Nansen, and Arthur Salter, 1st Baron Salter.

[40] The Geneva Graduate Institute had become known in the 1930s as a rallying point for neoliberal scholars, with economist Lionel Robbins calling it an "oasis of sanity" amid the rise of totalitarianism in Europe.

[41][42][37][43][44][45] It attracted leading neoliberal economists including Ludwig Von Mises, Wilhelm Röpke and Michael A. Heilperin, who formed an intellectual community with employees of the nearby General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and League of Nations secretariats, such as Gottfried Haberler, and with academics who presented key research at the Geneva Graduate Institute, including Friedrich Hayek and Lionel Robbins.

[51] Other faculty fleeing countries with Nazi regimes also included Hans Wehberg [de] and Georges Scelle for law, Maurice Bourquin for diplomatic history, and Swiss jurist Paul Guggenheim.

Hans Kelsen, theorist and philosopher of law, Guglielmo Ferrero, Italian historian, and Carl Burckhardt, scholar and diplomat were employed at the Geneva Graduate Institute.

With the Rockefeller Foundation ending its funding in 1954, the Canton of Geneva and the Swiss government began to bear most of the costs associated with the school.

Under his tenure, the Geneva Graduate Institute hosted many international colloquia that discussed preconditions for East–West negotiations, relations with China and its rising influence in world affairs, European integration, techniques and results of politico-socioeconomic forecasting (the early Club of Rome reports, and the Futuribles project led by Bertrand de Jouvenel), the causes and possible antidotes to terrorism, Pugwash Conference concerns and much more.

They include: Admission to the Geneva Graduate Institute's study programmes is highly competitive, with only 14% of applicants attending the school in 2014.

The other Europe-based PhD programs for policymakers listed in the top 20 by U.S. international relations faculty were at Oxford, Cambridge, the London School of Economics, and Sciences Po.

Adjacent to Villa Barton, the World Trade Organization's headquarters, known as the Centre William Rappard, housed the Geneva Graduate Institute's library during that period.

The school was then headed by Jacques Freymond (1955-1978), Christian Dominicé (1978-1984), Lucius Caflisch (1984-1990), Alexandre Swoboda (1990-1998), Peter Tschopp (de) (1998-2002), Jean-Michel Jacquet (2002-2004) and Philippe Burrin (2004-2020).

It is constituted as a Swiss private law foundation, namely the Fondation pour les hautes études internationales et du développement, that fulfills a public purpose.

The arrangement is unusual in Switzerland, where the cantons usually run public universities, with the exception of the federally-run ETH Zurich and École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne.

It rewards an internationally renowned academic whose research has contributed to enhancing the understanding of global challenges and whose work has influenced policy-makers.

Recent guest speakers have included U.N. Secretary-Generals Antonio Guterres[100] and Ban Ki-moon,[101] U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi,[102] U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein,[103] the Dalai Lama,[104] former World Trade Organization director-general Pascal Lamy,[105] Italian prime minister Mario Monti,[106] British prime minister Gordon Brown,[107] Liberian president Johnson Sirleaf,[108] journalist and Nobel laureate Dmitry Muratov,[109] Microsoft president Brad Smith,[110] economists Jeffrey Sachs,[111] Paul Krugman,[112] and Amartya Sen,[113] historian Niall Ferguson,[114] actress Angelina Jolie,[115] and philosopher Michael Sandel.

[117]The Graduate Institute's former faculty members include Maurice Allais,[118] Georges Abi-Saab, Richard Baldwin,[119] Carl Jacob Burckhardt,[120] Friedrich von Hayek,[121] Saul Friedländer,[122] Hans Kelsen,[123] Robert Mundell,[124] Gunnar Myrdal,[31] René Cassin, Shalini Randeria,[125] Kemal Dervis,[126] Pierre-Marie Dupuy,[127] Guglielmo Ferrero,[123] Theodor Meron,[128] Ludwig von Mises,[129] Olivier Long,[130] Wilhelm Röpke,[131] Emmanuel Gaillard,[132] Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen, Paul Guggenheim,[133] Harry Gordon Johnson,[134] Jacob Viner,[135] and Jean Ziegler.

[136] The Graduate Institute's current faculty members include William M. Adams, Jean-Louis Arcand, Jean-François Bayart, Thomas J. Biersteker, Gilles Carbonnier, Vincent Chetail, Andrew Clapham, Jacques Grinevald, Stefano Guzzini, Ilona Kickbusch, Marcelo Kohen, Nico Krisch, Keith Krause, Jussi Hanhimäki, Anna Leander, Giacomo Luciani, Alessandro Monsutti, Suerie Moon, Janne Nijman, Ugo Panizza, Joost Pauwelyn, Davide Rodogno, Gita Steiner-Khamsi, Timothy Swanson, Martina Viarengo, Jorge E. Viñuales, Beatrice Weder di Mauro, and Charles Wyplosz.