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]
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]
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]
The achievements of RAND stem from its development of systems analysis. Important contributions are claimed in space systems and the United States' space program,[33] in computing and in artificial intelligence. RAND researchers developed many of the principles that were used to build the Internet.[34] RAND also contributed to the development and use of wargaming.[35][36]
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.[38][39]
In 2018, RAND began its Gun Policy in America initiative,[40] which resulted in comprehensive reviews of the evidence of the effects of gun policies in the United States. The second expanded review in 2020[41] 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:
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."
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."
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."
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]
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[66]
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
Daniel Ellsberg was an American political activist, economist, and United States military analyst. While employed by the RAND Corporation, he precipitated a national political controversy in 1971 when he released the Pentagon Papers, a top-secret Pentagon study of U.S. government decision-making in relation to the Vietnam War, to The New York Times, The Washington Post, and other newspapers.
Herman Kahn was an American physicist and a founding member of the Hudson Institute, regarded as one of the preeminent futurists of the latter part of the twentieth century. He originally came to prominence as a military strategist and systems theorist while employed at the RAND Corporation. He analyzed the likely consequences of nuclear war and recommended ways to improve survivability during the Cold War. Kahn posited the idea of a "winnable" nuclear exchange in his 1960 book On Thermonuclear War for which he was one of the historical inspirations for the title character of Stanley Kubrick's classic black comedy film satire Dr. Strangelove. In his commentary for Fail Safe, director Sidney Lumet remarked that the Professor Groeteschele character is also based on Herman Kahn. Kahn's theories contributed to the development of the nuclear strategy of the United States.
The Hoover Institution is an American public policy think tank which promotes personal and economic liberty, free enterprise, and limited government. While the institution is formally a unit of Stanford University, it maintains an independent board of overseers and relies on its own income and donations. It is widely described as conservative, although its directors have contested the idea that it is partisan.
Hudson Institute is an American conservative think tank based in Washington, D.C. It was founded in 1961 in Croton-on-Hudson, New York, by futurist Herman Kahn and his colleagues at the RAND Corporation.
The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP) is a nonpartisan international affairs think tank headquartered in Washington, D.C., with operations in Europe, South and East Asia, and the Middle East as well as the United States. Founded in 1910 by Andrew Carnegie, the organization describes itself as being dedicated to advancing cooperation between countries, reducing global conflict, and promoting active international engagement between the United States and countries around the world. It engages leaders from multiple sectors and across the political spectrum.
The Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) is an American progressive think tank started in 1963 that is based in Washington, D.C. It was directed by John Cavanagh from 1998 to 2021. In 2021 Tope Folarin was announced as new Executive Director. It focuses on U.S. foreign policy, domestic policy, human rights, international economics, and national security.
The year 1945 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.
Harry Max Markowitz was an American economist who received the 1989 John von Neumann Theory Prize and the 1990 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences.
Thomas Crombie Schelling was an American economist and professor of foreign policy, national security, nuclear strategy, and arms control at the School of Public Policy at University of Maryland, College Park. He was also co-faculty at the New England Complex Systems Institute.
The Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science is the engineering and applied science school of Columbia University. It was founded as the School of Mines in 1863 and then the School of Mines, Engineering and Chemistry before becoming the School of Engineering and Applied Science. On October 1, 1997, the school was renamed in honor of Chinese businessman Z.Y. Fu, who had donated $26 million to the school.
Anthony J. Russo Jr. was an American researcher who assisted Daniel Ellsberg, his friend and former colleague at the RAND Corporation, in copying the Pentagon Papers. Russo was also the first person to document the systematic torture of Vietcong prisoners in Vietnam.
Leonid Hurwicz was a Polish–American economist and mathematician, known for his work in game theory and mechanism design. He originated the concept of incentive compatibility, and showed how desired outcomes can be achieved by using incentive compatible mechanism design. Hurwicz shared the 2007 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his seminal work on mechanism design. Hurwicz was one of the oldest Nobel Laureates, having received the prize at the age of 90.
Science and technology in Russia have developed rapidly since the Age of Enlightenment, when Peter the Great founded the Russian Academy of Sciences and Saint Petersburg State University and polymath Mikhail Lomonosov founded the Moscow State University, establishing a strong native tradition in learning and innovation.
↑ 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
1 2 Heilbrunn, 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
1 2 Kazin, 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).
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$351.7 million (2016) [4] 
