Thinking Ahead: Let's Favor Long Term Over Short Run — Dec. 1, 2008

When most people make decisions, the distant future isn't a chief concern. Politicians are no different, seldom planning beyond the current election cycle. But when it comes to complex policy problems like climate change, nuclear waste storage and government science funding, such thinking may be shortsighted.

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How Leaders Make Policy Decisions— Sep. 15, 2008

Congress’ debates over the energy bill are only one example of near-term decisions with potentially significantly long-term impacts. In a recent article, the Associated Press’ AnalysisOnline points to the RAND Pardee Center as a leading source of methodologies to help improve policy makers’ long-term decisions.

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Book Review: The Handbook of Technology Foresight— Sep. 11, 2008

Excerp from a Book Review by Robert Lemert for Nature; During the past decade, many national governments have sponsored formal planning processes called technology foresight. Such exercises involve a wide range of stakeholders in anticipating long-term social, economic and technological developments, and then using the resulting vision to inform government policies.

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Comparing Alternative U.S. Counterterrorism Strategies: Can Assumption-Based Planning Help Elevate the Debate? — 2008

The United States faces the challenge of countering the terrorism threat. Frequently, both expert decisionmakers and lay citizens have trouble assessing alternative strategies to address such issues because of the emotions they engender and of the deep uncertainty involved. This briefing reports on two sets of workshops that attempted to use assumption-based planning (ABP) to help contentious groups more systematically debate alternative U.S. counterterrorism strategies.

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New Pardee Center Director - Robert Lempert — Feb. 2008

Robert Lempert, Senior Physical Scientist at RAND, has assumed the Director position for the RAND Pardee Center for Longer Range Global Policy and the Future Human Condition. Professor Lempert is an expert in science and technology policy, with a special focus in climate change, energy, and the environment. He assumes this position from James Dewar, Senior Mathematician at RAND.

Expert Biography

Change in the List of 50 Books for Thinking About the Future — November 2007

Development expert Paul Collier’s book, The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries Are Failing and What Can Be Done About It, was added to the list of 50 book for thinking about the future. It replaces Pierre Englebert’s book State Legitimacy and Development in Africa. While Englebert’s book presents an important approach to understanding the problems of development in Africa, Collier’s book is more comprehensive both about what classifies as a failed state and why those states have failed. In addition, Collier presents intervention tools for solving the problems of the failed states.

2007 Nobel Laureate: Robert Lempert — October 2007

Robert Lempert, Senior Physical Scientist at RAND was a contributor to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace along with Vice President Al Gore. Professor Lempert is an expert in science and technology policy, with a special focus in climate change, energy, and the environment

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Popper Presents New Approach to Social Security Projections — September 2007

As part of the The Congressional Decisionmaking Project, Dr. Steven Popper presented a new approach to projecting the future of the Social Security Trust Fund. The project is funded by the John Brademas Center for the Study of Congress and the Smith Richardson Foundation, and is exploring how Congress and the Presidency can strengthen their capacity to address policy questions that have significant long-term impacts.

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