The centre teaches undergraduate and postgraduate students, conducts policy-focused research, and hosts public events on a range of issues.

After a national competition administered by the New-York-based American Australian Association, the University of Sydney won the right to form the centre in partnership with the AAA, with additional support from the NSW government and the private sector.

The centre constituted its board of directors chaired by Malcolm Binks, AO and held its first national summit on the Bush presidency in 2007.

The fellows' work focused on a variety of issues related to the United States, including cross-national comparisons of the role of religion, effects of increases in income inequality, the history of financial exchanges, U.S. and Arab-Israeli relations, Latino interest in education policy, and the history of sexual liberation in the 1970s U.S.[1] In the same year, the centre appointed former executive director of recovery management for the City of New Orleans Edward Blakely as honorary professor in urban policy and former Australian Ambassador to the UN Robert Hill as adjunct professor in sustainability.

The program was aimed at bringing together academic and policy experts from Australia and the US to develop action-oriented solutions to a range of sustainability challenges concerning energy, water, food and biodiversity that are technologically innovative, commercially scalable and politically viable.