With invited leaders, faculty and students concentrating on clearly-defined issues of importance to the world community -- land, water, energy, food supplies, transportation, environment, housing, education, health, and heritage -- the Center annually will follow through on steps needed to design, display, debate, evaluate, test, and in appropriate cases, deploy undertakings of relevance and urgency.

The Center is inspired by the work of Frank Davidson, best known as co-founder of the English Channel Tunnel Study Group in the 1950's, and participant in large scale undertakings from the US Civilian Conservation Corps of the 1930's and 1940's, to MIT's Macro-Engineering Research Group from the 1970's to the 1990's. Davidson was awarded a 2003 Honorary Degree from Roger Williams University.