The Global Value Chains Initiative seeks to develop an industry-centric view of economic globalization that highlights the linkages between economic actors and across geographic space. It is a multi-year effort to test and develop the GVC framework with the aims of creating greater analytical precision, intellectual impact and policy relevance. Our efforts include a research agenda, a publishing thrust, the development and dissemination of industrial upgrading handbooks for practitioners, and a series of intensive workshops convened to test and broaden the framework through interactions among network participants and with the broader academic, policy-making and activist communities.