Human migration is a worldwide phenomenon, spanning every epoch and encompassing many peoples, but one that had not been much studied by scholars. Motivated by this gap in knowledge, the Academy organized a symposium to encourage cross-disciplinary exchange on the policies, patterns, and implications of migration over time, and across and within national borders.

The Academy is bringing together political scientists, legal and security experts, health professionals, and humanitarians to rethink the provision of essential health services in areas of violent conflict.

After an examination of research literature showed that evaluations of many educational interventions were nearly useless because they provided little reliable information about whether programs worked, the Academy created The Center for Evaluation to apply meta-analysis to the problem. Researchers extracted information from experimental data from multiple sources to analyze studies on topics such as optimum class size and grouping students according to skill levels.

The pervasive challenge of housing affordability requires a comprehensive approach in response. The Academy's project on housing solutions explores and highlights a particular local approach. The focus is on how anchor institutions—universities and colleges, faith-based organizations, and philanthropies—can facilitate affordable housing solutions in their communities.

Drawing from national leaders in education, business, and government, this commission analyzed the current state of undergraduate education and offers recommendations to improve the quality of student learning, increase college completion rates, and ensure all students have access to an affordable postsecondary education.

While the digital revolution has changed the nature of news distribution, it has not diminished the need for ambitious, accurate, and reliable journalism in American society. This project looked at the evolving role of the media in today’s world, in general, and analyzed how reporters cover science and economic issues, in particular.

This project examined how to improve the scientific community’s appreciation of public concerns about science and technology. The project reversed the more common question of public understanding of science by asking what scientists know or should know about the public and its concerns.

The Humanities Indicators is a nationally recognized source of nonpartisan information on the state of the humanities, providing researchers, policy-makers, journalists, humanities practitioners, and engaged citizens with better tools to answer basic questions about the past, present, and future of the field.

The Forum, a collaboration of higher education leaders and scholars, launched in 1984 and moved to the Academy in 2022. The Higher Education Forum is an opportunity for the Academy to provide leadership and learning on pressing issues in higher education with a cross-disciplinary and cross-sector approach that draws on the strengths of its members and Affiliates.

By convening scholars, practitioners, and policy-makers with representatives of the courts, legal aid providers, and foundations, the project seeks to understand and assess the challenge of providing legal services for low-income Americans.

The Commission on Language Learning examined the current state of language education, projected what the nation’s education needs would be in the future, and offered recommendations for ways to meet those needs.

This study examined the scope of mass incarceration, its political significance, and its social impacts, weighing the concerns about crime control, rehabilitation, and more fundamental issues of social justice.

This study investigated the rationale, the means, and the consequences of providing high-quality primary and secondary education to all the world's children.

The Academy co-sponsored a multidisciplinary symposium focused on the technical, political, and economic issues surrounding multinational control of the nuclear reactor fuel cycle. The resulting volume evaluates the advantages and disadvantages of placing reprocessing facilities under international or multinational control.

This series of studies explored issues affecting international security in the former Soviet states.

The ARISE project and its resulting report sought to foster a new generation of scientists and stimulate innovation to generate competitive advantage in a global economy.

The Global Nuclear Future Initiative seeks to guide domestic and international policy-makers trying to balance the pursuit of a national nuclear energy program with the potential safety, security, and economic concerns.