This summer, senior Arab and Israeli water negotiators and policymakers will convene in Cambridge, Massachusetts, along with individuals from more than 15 other countries to participate in the Water Diplomacy Workshop (www.waterdiplomacy.org) — a highly interactive, train-the-trainer program designed to help senior water managers improve their capacity to resolve complex water disputes.  The initiative is a collaboration between PON Executive … read more »

Patrick Field is Managing Director at the Consensus Building Institute (CBI), Associate Director of the MIT-Harvard Public Disputes Program, and Senior Fellow at the University of Montana Center for Natural Resources and Environmental Policy. As one of the country’s most experienced group facilitators, Mr. Field has helped thousands of stakeholders reach agreement on organizational mergers, realignments, regulations, permits, and other … read more »

David Fairman is Managing Director at the Consensus Building Institute (CBI), Associate Director of the MIT-Harvard Public Disputes Program, and Lecturer in MIT’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning. He holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from MIT and a B.A. from Harvard College. At MIT, his academic focus is the application of negotiation and consensus building principles and tools … read more »

The Clearinghouse at PON offers hundreds of role simulations, from two-party, single-issue negotiations to complex multi-party exercises. The Pullman Strike Role Play is a simulation from the Workable Peace Curriculum Series unit on the rise of organized labor in the United States.

This role play is set in the town of Pullman, Illinois, outside of Chicago, in 1894. Pullman is a … read more »

Access to multimedia content is rapidly increasing throughout the world, with videos and short clips permeating our daily life – whether in gas stations, on ATMs, cell phones, or mobile entertainment devices.   We are consuming, producing, and interacting with videos more now than ever before: YouTube is the third-most visited website on the Internet, the website Hulu is now seen … read more »

The Program on Negotiation (PON) is the world’s first teaching and research center dedicated to negotiation, and its founders are among the true pioneers in the field. On April 8, 2003, seven of these founders gathered to reflect on PON’s beginnings in the early 1980s, and on their own journeys as leaders in the field that they helped to create. … read more »

Lawrence E. Susskind has been a Professor at MIT for more than 35 years. He teaches negotiation as well as a number of other advanced subjects and runs a substantial research program as Director of the MIT-Harvard Public Disputes Program. He has supervised more than 60 doctoral students who now work around the world in academia, government and the private … read more »

Consensus Building Institute

238 Main Street, Suite 400
Cambridge, MA 02142
617-492-1414; Fax: 617-492-1919
CBI@cbuilding.org
www.cbuilding.org

Managing Directors: David Fairman and Patrick Field
Founder and Senior Advisor: Lawrence Susskind

Contact: Ed Minor
617-844-1113
eminor@cbuilding.org

The Consensus Building Institute (CBI) is a not-for-profit organization that provides dispute resolution services and undertakes dispute systems analysis and design activities for public agencies in the United States and overseas. CBI’s public dispute resolution work in … read more »

The M.I.T.-Harvard Public Disputes Program

512 Pound Hall
Harvard Law School
Cambridge, MA 02138

Managing Directors: David Fairman and Patrick Field
Founder and Senior Advisor: Lawrence Susskind

Contact: Ed Minor
617-844-1113
eminor@cbuilding.org

The Public Disputes Program (PDP) seeks to bring together scholars and professionals to improve the practice of negotiation, mediation, and conflict management in the public sector. The Program undertakes basic and applied research, provides advice to public … read more »

The debate over how to reform health care has quickly become volatile and often unproductive, with the media focusing on who brings the largest group of shouting protesters.

Professor Lawrence Susskind of the Program on Negotiation and the Consensus Building Institute outlines in his blog how to use a consensus building approach to improve the level of discourse at health care … read more »