The institute served as US co-lead for Canada-US border policy on the Borders in Globalization (BIG) initiative.  BIG is an innovative, integrative, and sustainable network of academic partners from Canada, the United States, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East that is engaged with non-academic organizations involved in the management of borders and borderlands in Canada and worldwide. The basic goal is to build excellence in the knowledge and understanding of borders.  To this end, the partners worked together to create new policies and foster knowledge transfer in order to address such globalization forces as security, trade and migration flows, and also to understand the forces of technology, self-determination and regionalization that are affecting borders and borderlands in regions around the world. See http://biglobalization.org/