RAND Corporation

RAND Corporation (Research ANd Development) is a nonprofit global policy think tank originally formed by Douglas Aircraft Company to offer research and analysis to the United States Armed Forces. It is financed by the U.S. government and private endowment, corporations including the health care industry, universities and private individuals. The organization has expanded to work with other governments, private foundations, international organizations, and commercial organizations on a host of non-defense issues. RAND aims for interdisciplinary and quantitative problem solving via translating theoretical concepts from formal economics and the physical sciences into novel applications in other areas, that is, via applied science and operations research. Michael D. Rich is president and chief executive officer of the RAND Corporation. RAND has approximately 1,700 employees. Its American locations include: Santa Monica, California (headquarters); Arlington, Virginia; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; and Boston, Massachusetts. The RAND Gulf States Policy Institute has offices in New Orleans, Louisiana, and Jackson, Mississippi. RAND Europe is located in Cambridge, United Kingdom, and Brussels, Belgium. RAND Australia is located in Canberra, Australia. RAND is home to the Frederick S. Pardee RAND Graduate School, one of the eight original graduate programs in public policy and the first to offer a Ph.D. The program aims to have practical value in that students work with RAND analysts on real-world problems. The campus is at RAND’s Santa Monica research facility. The Pardee RAND School is the world’s largest Ph.D.-granting program in policy analysis. Unlike many other universities, 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 on-the-job training. RAND also offers a number of internship and fellowship programs allowing students and outsiders to assist in conducting research for RAND projects. Most of these projects are short-term and are worked on independently with the mentoring of a RAND staff member. RAND publishes the RAND Journal of Economics, a peer-reviewed journal of economics. Thirty-two recipients of the Nobel Prize, primarily in the fields of economics and physics, have been involved or associated with RAND at some point in their career.