RAND Corporation
The RAND Corporation is an American nonprofit global policy think tank,[1] research institute, and public sector consulting firm. RAND Corporation engages in research and development (R&D) across multiple fields and industries. Since the 1950s, RAND research has helped inform United States policy decisions on a wide variety of issues, including the space race, the Vietnam War, the U.S.-Soviet nuclear arms confrontation, the creation of the Great Society social welfare programs, and national health care.
Not to be confused with American Research and Development Corporation, Remington Rand, Ingersoll Rand, or Sperry Rand.Predecessor
Spin-off of Project RAND, a former partnership between Douglas Aircraft Company and the United States Air Force until incorporation as a nonprofit and gaining independence from both.
May 14, 1948
Global policy think tank, research institute, and public sector consulting firm[1]
95-1958142
Santa Monica, California, U.S.
Worldwide
- Jennifer Gould
- Andrew R. Hoehn
- Mike Januzik
- Eric Peltz
- Melissa Rowe
- Robert M. Case[2]
Hans Pung[2]
- Michael E. Leiter (Chair)
- Teresa Wynn Roseborough (Vice Chair)
- Joel Z. Hyatt
- Peter Lowy
- Michael Lynton
- Mary E. Peters
- David L. Porges
- Donald B. Rice (Emeritus)
- Leonard D. Schaeffer[3]
RAND Europe
Frederick S. Pardee RAND Graduate School
Independent
$267.7 million (2020)[5]
1,700[6]
The RAND Corporation originated as "Project RAND" (from the phrase "research and development") in the postwar period immediately after World War II.[7][8] The United States Army Air Forces established Project RAND with the objective of investigating long-range planning of future weapons.[9] Douglas Aircraft Company was granted a contract to research intercontinental warfare.[9] Project RAND later evolved into the RAND Corporation, and expanded its research into civilian fields such as education and international affairs.[10] It was the first think tank to be regularly referred to as a "think tank".[1]
RAND receives both public and private funding. Its funding sources include the U.S. government, private endowments,[6] corporations,[11] universities,[11] charitable foundations, U.S. state and local governments, international organizations, and to a small extent, by foreign governments.[11][12]
In 2023, Politico reported that the RAND Corporation was a driving force behind the White House’s new AI reporting requirements after it took more than $15 million in discretionary grants on AI and biosecurity from Open Philanthropy.[13][14]
Overview[edit]
RAND has approximately 1,850 employees. Its American locations include: Santa Monica, California (headquarters); Arlington, Virginia; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; and Boston, Massachusetts.[15] The RAND Gulf States Policy Institute has an office in New Orleans, Louisiana. RAND Europe is located in Cambridge, United Kingdom; Brussels, Belgium; and Rotterdam, Netherlands.[16] RAND Australia is located in Canberra, Australia.[17]
RAND is home to the Frederick S. Pardee RAND Graduate School, one of eight original graduate programs in public policy and the first to offer a PhD. The program aims to provide practical experience for students, who work with RAND analysts on addressing real-world problems. The campus is at RAND's Santa Monica research facility. The Pardee RAND School is the world's largest PhD-granting program in policy analysis.[18]
Unlike many other programs, all Pardee RAND Graduate School students receive fellowships to cover their education costs. This allows them to dedicate their time to engage in research projects and provides them with on-the-job training.[18] RAND also offers a number of internship and fellowship programs allowing students and others to assist in conducting research for RAND projects. Most of these are short-term independent projects mentored by a RAND staff member.[19]
RAND publishes the RAND Journal of Economics, a peer-reviewed journal of economics.[20]
Thirty-two recipients of the Nobel Prize, primarily in the fields of economics and physics, have been associated with RAND at some point in their career.[21][22]
History[edit]
Project RAND[edit]
RAND was created after individuals in the War Department, the Office of Scientific Research and Development, and industry began to discuss the need for a private organization to connect operational research with research and development decisions.[19] The immediate impetus for the creation of RAND was a fateful conversation in September 1945 between General Henry H. "Hap" Arnold and Douglas executive Franklin R. Collbohm.[23] Both men were deeply worried that ongoing demobilization meant the federal government was about to lose direct control of the vast amount of American scientific brainpower assembled to fight World War II.[23]
As soon as Arnold realized Collbohm had been thinking along similar lines, he said, "I know just what you're going to tell me. It's the most important thing we can do."[24] With Arnold's blessing, Collbohm quickly pulled in additional people from Douglas to help, and together with Donald Douglas, they convened with Arnold two days later at Hamilton Army Airfield to sketch out a general outline for Collbohm's proposed project.[24]
Douglas engineer Arthur Emmons Raymond came up with the name Project RAND, from "research and development".[7] Collbohm suggested that he himself should serve as the project's first director, which he thought would be a temporary position while he searched for a permanent replacement for himself.[7] He later became RAND's first president and served in that capacity until his retirement in 1967.[25]
On 1 October 1945, Project RAND was set up under special contract to the Douglas Aircraft Company and began operations in December 1945.[19][26] In May 1946, the Preliminary Design of an Experimental World-Circling Spaceship was released.
RAND Corporation[edit]
By late 1947, Douglas Aircraft executives had expressed their concerns that their close relationship with RAND might create conflict of interest problems on future hardware contracts. In February 1948, the chief of staff of the newly created United States Air Force approved the evolution of Project RAND into a nonprofit corporation, independent of Douglas.[19]
On 14 May 1948, RAND was incorporated as a nonprofit corporation under the laws of the State of California and on 1 November 1948, the Project RAND contract was formally transferred from the Douglas Aircraft Company to the RAND Corporation.[19] Initial capital for the spin-off was provided by the Ford Foundation.
Since the 1950s, RAND research has helped inform United States policy decisions on a wide variety of issues, including the space race, the Vietnam War, the U.S.-Soviet nuclear arms confrontation, the creation of the Great Society social welfare programs, the digital revolution, and national health care.[27] In the 1970s the Rand Corporation adjusted computer models it was using to recommend closures of fire stations in New York City so that fire stations were closed in the most fire-prone areas, home to Black and Puerto Rican residents, rather than in wealthier, more affluent neighborhoods.[28]
RAND contributed to the doctrine of nuclear deterrence by mutually assured destruction (MAD), developed under the guidance of then-Defense Secretary Robert McNamara and based upon their work with game theory.[29] Chief strategist Herman Kahn also posited the idea of a "winnable" nuclear exchange in his 1960 book On Thermonuclear War. This led to Kahn's being one of the models for the titular character of the film Dr. Strangelove, in which RAND is spoofed as the "BLAND Corporation".[30][31]
Even in the late 1940s and early 1950s, long before Sputnik, the RAND project was secretly recommending to the US government a major effort to design a human-made satellite that would take photographs from space and the rockets to put such a satellite in orbit.[32]
RAND was not the first think tank, but during the 1960s, it was the first to be regularly referred to as a "think tank".[1] Accordingly, RAND served as the "prototype" for the modern definition of that term.[1]
Almost since its inception, the RAND Corporation has been involved in controversial issues—and its reports, recommendations and influence have been the subject of extensive public debate and controversy. Among these have been:
In December 2023, the RAND Corporation was designated as "undesirable" in Russia.[62]
In October 2023, the RAND Corporation was accused of being part of a "sprawling network" across Washington, DC that was "pushing policymakers to put AI apocalypse at the top of the agenda — potentially boxing out other worries and benefiting top AI companies with ties to the network."[2]
In December 2023, the House Science Committee sent a bipartisan letter[63] to the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) raising concerns over it's "choice to partner with RAND, given the think tank’s affiliation with Open Philanthropy and increasing focus on existential AI risks."[3]
In December 2023, Politico reported that "Researchers from the RAND Corporation — which took more than $15 million this year from a group financed by a Facebook co-founder — were a driving force behind the White House’s sweeping new AI reporting requirements."[4]
In January, 2024, a Wall Street Journal commentary raised concerns about the influence of Open Philanthropy and the larger Effective Altruist movement on the think tank's research on AI.[64]