NEW YORK – The Atlantic Council has officially launched its Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security, a center that will vastly expand the Council’s capacity to address the security demands of a fast-changing world.

Announced at the Council’s annual Global Citizen Awards dinner in New York City tonight, the Scowcroft Center is named after the nation’s only two-time National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft and will celebrate his life of bipartisan commitment to our country’s security. The Center replaces the Council’s current International Security Program, while building an expanded staff of experts and fellows to increase the Council’s capacity to address cutting-edge regional and global security issues.

“The Atlantic Council has created the Scowcroft Center out of our firm conviction that our world needs more of the good sense, wisdom, and bipartisan commitment to national service that General Scowcroft has embodied in his over six decades of continuing service to our country,” said Atlantic Council Chairman Senator Chuck Hagel.

“While I am humbled to be associated with…the creation of the Scowcroft Center, I am also excited to see the work already underway in building the Center and how it is already producing cutting edge work on a range of issues the Council was not addressing merely two years ago,” said General Brent Scowcroft at the launch. “I am excited about the Center’s ambition for engaging in long-term thinking that goes beyond the issues of the inbox to anticipate the strategic shocks that can prove so disruptive to policymakers.”

The Scowcroft Center, under the chairmanship of former National Security Advisor General James L. Jones, Jr., will continue the Council’s long-standing focus on NATO and the transatlantic partnership, while also responding to ‘over the horizon’ regional and functional security challenges to the United States, its allies, and partners.

Center co-chairs are Torch Hill Investment Partners Chairman George Lund, Scowcroft Group Founding Principal and Managing Director Virginia A. Mulberger, and former Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Affairs Ellen Tauscher. The Council’s current International Security Program Director Barry Pavel will lead the Scowcroft Center as its director.

This year’s Global Citizen Awards dinner in New York City recognized the outstanding achievements of Burmese politician and Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, former Secretary of State and Nobel laureate Henry Kissinger, former UN High Commissioner for Refugees Sadako Ogata, and musician-humanitarian Quincy Jones. Presented annually, the awards recognize visionary global leaders who embody the Council’s mission to renew the transatlantic community for global challenges and provide solutions to our most critical international challenges.