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.
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 sweeping new AI reporting requirements after it took more than $15 million in discretionary grants on AI and biosecurity from Open Philanthropy.[13][14] The effective-altruist group has personal and financial ties to AI firms Anthropic and OpenAI, and top RAND personnel have been closely linked to key corporate structures at those companies.[13][14]
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]
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]
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]
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]
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]
Mission
RAND was incorporated as a non-profit organization to "further promote scientific, educational, and charitable purposes, all for the public welfare and security of the United States of America". Its self-declared mission is "to help improve policy and decision making through research and analysis", using its "core values of quality and objectivity".[33]
Achievements
The achievements of RAND stem from its development of
systems analysis. Important contributions are claimed in space systems and the United States'
space program,[34] in computing and in
artificial intelligence. RAND researchers developed many of the principles that were used to build the
Internet.[35] RAND also contributed to the development and use of
wargaming.[36][37]
RAND designed and conducted one of the largest and most important studies of health insurance between 1974 and 1982. The
RAND Health Insurance Experiment, funded by the then–U.S.
Department of Health, Education and Welfare, established an insurance corporation to compare demand for health services with their cost to the patient.[39][40]
In 2018, RAND began its Gun Policy in America initiative,[41] which resulted in comprehensive reviews of the evidence of the effects of gun policies in the United States. The second expanded review in 2020[42] analyzed almost 13,000 relevant studies on guns and gun violence since 1995 and selected 123 as having sufficient methodological rigor for inclusion. These were used to determine the level of scientific support for eighteen classes of gun policy.
Controversy
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:
Barry Boehm: worked in interactive computer graphics with the RAND Corporation in the 1960s and had helped define the ARPANET in the early phases of that program[65]
Harold L. Brode: physicist, leading nuclear weapons effects expert
Bernard Brodie: Military strategist and nuclear architect
Alain Enthoven: economist, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense from 1961 to 1965, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Systems Analysis from 1965 to 1969
^Flood, Joe:
The Fires: How a Computer Formula Burned Down New York City—and Determined the Future of American Cities, 2011, Riverhead Books,
-- summarized at:
GoodReads.com, and reviewed at:
GoodReads.com (by
Rob Kitchin), and at
Accounts, (newsletter of the Economics section of the
American Sociological Association), Vol. XV, Issue 2, Spring 2016, page 32, retrieved November 24, 2022
^
abHeilbrunn, Jacob:
"Real Men of Genius" (book review of Soldiers of Reason: The RAND Corp and Rise of the American Empire by Alex Abella, 2008, Harcourt), September 21, 2008, Washington Post, retrieved November 24, 2022
^
abKazin, Michael, reviewer:
"Inside Job" (book review of Secrets -- autobiography of Daniel Ellsberg, 2002, Viking), November 3, 2002, Washington Post, retrieved November 24, 2022
^Life Magazine, 25 February 1957, "Passing of a Great Mind", by Clay Bair JR. pages 89–104
^Alex Roland and Philip Shiman, Strategic Computing: DARPA and the Quest for Machine Intelligence, 1983–1993, The MIT Press, 2002,
p. 302
^Nina Tannenwald, The Nuclear Taboo: The United States and the Non-Use of Nuclear Weapons Since 1945, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (UK), 2007,
p. 138-139
Martin J. Collins. Cold War Laboratory: RAND, the Air Force, and the American State, 1945–1950 (2002,
Smithsonian Institution Scholarly Press hardcover, part of the Smithsonian History of Aviation and Spaceflight Series;
ISBN1-58834-086-4)
Agatha C. Hughes and
Thomas P. Hughes (editors). Systems, Experts, and Computers: The Systems Approach in Management and Engineering, World War II and After (2000,
The MIT Press hardcover, part of the Dibner Institute Studies in the History of Science and Technology;
ISBN0-262-08285-3 / 2011, paperback reprint edition;
ISBN0-262-51604-7).
David Jardini. Thinking Through the Cold War: RAND, National Security and Domestic Policy, 1945–1975 (2013, Smashwords; Amazon Kindle;
ISBN978-1-301-15851-5).