 If I remember correctly, I was appointed to the board of UNU Wider in late 2000 and I went to the first board meeting, I think, in the summer of 2001 and at the very first meeting, much to my surprise, in some sense of hesitation, I was elected chairman of the board. As it turned out, it was a rewarding experience. It was a learning experience with a peer group on the board who were academics of distinction and with an institution that was the flagship, as it were, of the UNU system and a leader in development research. I should say that at the time I arrived in Wider, it had been through a crisis in the preceding few years that arose from a misunderstanding between the institution for a variety of complicated reasons. And the government of Finland, that was the host country which provided support. This problem had been largely resolved in the four years preceding my arrival as chairman of the board by the then director, Andrea Cornier, and only a few wrinkles that remain were ironed out quickly enough so that mutual trust, mutual respect, was entirely restored. And in many ways, my tenure of eight years as chairman of the UNU Wider board was a very productive period for Wider. Wider discovered and exploited its comparative advantage, which was at the intersection of theory and policy in development and at the intersection of social science disciplines. First, it questioned conventional wisdom. So it created space for a critique and at the same time it helped nurture heterodox views. Now, the world of economics and the world of social sciences are both characterised by embedded ideologies so that analyses and conclusions are often shaped by ideological preference or prejudice. In this context, analysis that revealed and enabled readers to make up their own minds was, I believe, a very important contribution. Second, it did have an autonomy in developing its research agenda. This autonomy came in part from its substantial endowment which gave it an annual income stream of 2.5 million US dollars to use as it wished for research. And at the same time, it developed its own work programme, its research agenda, two years at a time, so that when it went searching for finance, it was with a complete research menu. And at the end of that search, what was not financed by projects was financed by the income stream from the endowment. So at no point in time was the research agenda wider shaped by project finance, which is often a problem for many research institutions that are similar. Third, the wider model of research was innovative. It chose project directors as leaders from across the world. Fourth, I think its strength, apart from the leadership provided to the institution by the directors, was the nature, the composition and the quality of the board. And I can say from my experience as chair of the board for eight years that we had members who were, you know, who epitomised academic excellence, who epitomised the liberal intellectual tradition. The relationship of the board with each other on the board, their relationship with the UNU system, their relationship with the government of Finland, the host country and their relationship with the director and the institution was exemplary. It sourced resource persons from project leadership, essentially from universities and institutions in industrialised countries, in rich countries. Now some of these scholars could well have had their homes or origins in the developing world, but they did not live or work there. They lived in industrialised countries. There were too few resource persons from among researchers or academics who lived in developing countries, lived and worked in developing countries, just as there were too few resource persons from among women and from among young scholars. Now we made a systematic attempt to address these problems as the board recognised them and put in place different institutional mechanisms. A, not simply to search out project leaders from among distinguished scholars, but also to invite applications from those who wish to be project leaders and consider them with an open mind. B, to establish a system whereby PhD students working in developing countries could come and spend a summer or a month as interns at WIDER to interact not only with WIDER staff, but also with many eminent scholars who came and went. C, we introduced the idea of an annual conference in which you could have celebrities or invited speakers, but a large number of the speakers were drawn from those who submitted papers that were refereed and then selected and WIDER as an institution provided financial support for them to come. Now I would say that we did build on our strengths with success. I would say that we did manage to address our weaknesses to improve the institution and its working in some respects, but this success was only partial. We made a beginning, but it was not our destination. We did not reach our destination and I sincerely hope that the effort to introduce correctives for these weaknesses has continued. In fairness, I should begin with the times before my time. I do recall as a scholar in the outside world three pieces of wider work that were influential in their reach and in the power of the ideas. Yes, the volume edited by Stephen Marglin and Julia Chaur, the Golden Age of Capitalism, the volume edited by Lance Taylor, Varieties of Stabilization Experience, and the volume edited by Sean Dress and Amita Sen on the Political Economy of Hunger. Each of them, in their own way, made important contributions to understanding and stimulated thinking, stimulated research, made a difference. If I were to think of work and inclusion and exclusion can be invidious, I don't mean to. I am just recalling what left an impression on me. There were many, many others. I would choose the book edited by Andrea Cornia and Vladimir Popov, Transition Economies or Transition and Institutions, Hajun Chang, Institutional Change and Economic Development, George Mabrotas and Anthony Shorrocks, Advancing Development, Core Themes in Global Economics. Perhaps something new, even if sparse, Jim Davis' personal wealth from a global perspective, and if it does not transgress modesty as a virtue, I would also mention the book I put together on governing globalization. I think, and this was done before I was a member or chair of the board. And I would say these books made a difference. I think wider has worked on themes that are perennial. It has worked on them over a long period of time, a decade or longer. It has worked on themes that are conjunctural, that have an importance at that juncture in time. And it has worked on selective themes, which have sometimes been very innovative and very significant in their contribution. I think that where, why the contributed in its thinking was that it engaged in analyzing development at the intersection of theory and policy, at the intersection of disciplines and social sciences, it questioned conventional wisdom, and it made significant contributions to knowledge. I would say that wider should retain its interest in the big picture, the wide canvas. I think a wider should adhere as closely as it can to the liberal intellectual tradition, so that it has the capacity to question conventional wisdoms of every view, of every school of thought, so that readers, students, researchers, policymakers can, on the basis of its research, make up their minds and decide what they believe is correct. I think that it should stay within its niche, it should endeavor to stay ahead of the curve, and that the World Institute for Development Economics Research, the acronym WIDER, should engage in wider thinking ahead. Now, there are obvious domains for WIDER to engage in, and I'm sure it has moved on, globalization, employment, transformation, many things. But it should address some issues, old issues that remain neglected, such as agriculture. Most people in the developing world draw their livelihoods from that. Their well-being depends on what happens to agriculture. It might consider, it has worked on education and health and social sectors, how important they are in development, but it might also begin to analyze infrastructure for development and the role it plays. And I would say that, you know, there are problems in countries that everyone researches everywhere in the world. So WIDER, in keeping with its sort of search for the niche, its comparative advantage, should focus on Africa. I think it's in the future of development, 50 years from now. I think WIDER should consider concentrated work and focus on the least developed countries, the poorest countries in the world, the landlocked economies, the island economies, and there are a large number of countries in that domain. But there's an enormous world out there. Ultimately, whatever I say, choices will have to be made, and those choices must be made on the basis of that double litmus test. That are you at the intersection of theory and policy and development? Are you at the intersection of disciplines in the social sciences so that you do what university departments and universities do not do? And do you maintain that liberal intellectual tradition of questioning all conventional wisdoms?