The Academy gathered together a multidisciplinary group of scholars to design a study of environmental decision-making that focused on the theoretical aspects of the process and examined policy analysis and decision-making.

This project focused on the meaning of “public interest” communication in a 500-channel marketplace, with particular emphasis on television’s failure to fulfill its potential as an educational medium.

A study group composed of policy figures, military experts, and policy analysts studied such issues as the technical and political aspects of the U.S. and Soviet command and control systems over nuclear forces; the devolution and delegation of authority to use nuclear weapons; and the synergistic effects of U.S. and Soviet actions during a crisis.

This project brought together experts from education, law, statistics, economics, policy studies, and business to assess how critical thinking is taught and to propose ways to strengthen these skills.

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 World War II, the social sciences operated in a changed field, particularly in terms of their relations to the polity and the economy. This study examined whether the social sciences can credibly claim to perform an impartial role and how to maintain ethical integrity in social science scholarship.

To address a deepening crisis in the lives of America’s children, the Academy organized a steering committee to explore how the Academy could increase the nation’s commitment to and investment in children.

Public colleges and universities are key engines of economic growth, innovation, and upward mobility. This project explored strategies to preserve the strength and diversity of institutions of higher education.

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.

This project brought together American and Japanese scholars and decision-makers to discuss the security problems of East Asia and the Western Pacific. Participants met five times over several years, in the United States and in Japan.

In the early 1990s, the Academy held a four-day conference to address America's crisis in health care spending and the idea of equitable and adequate health care for all. The edited report was distributed to health care leaders around the country.

In 1977, nearly twenty-five years after the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision found that “separate educational facilities are inherently unequal,” the aftershocks were still affecting American society. The Academy convened an interdisciplinary study group to examine the post-Brown urban school integration experience and to consider solutions to ongoing education inequality in American classrooms.

In 1984, as China was reviving its long-neglected education system, a small delegation from the American Academy visited the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences to help develop programs that will allow Chinese scholars to learn about developments in Western social science and humanistic disciplines and allow U.S. scholars to learn about scholarly and societal developments in China.

The bipartisan Commission issued Our Common Purpose: Reinventing American Democracy for the 21st Century to both strengthen institutions and bolster civil society. Work is underway to advance initiatives rooted in that report that will help make the nation emerge as a more resilient democracy by 2026, the nation’s 250th anniversary.

Meeting the Challenges of the New Nuclear Age examines some of the possible escalation pathways that could lead one or more nuclear weapons states to use nuclear weapons and aims to articulate a set of recommendations for de-escalating possible nuclear crises mostly involving the United States and its allies.

This study explored the impact of growing racial and ethnic diversity on college and university campuses and the responses of faculties and administrative leaders to these demographic changes.

This commission is dedicated to ensuring all students, especially historically underserved students, can thrive and find rewarding jobs in an ever-changing global economy, empowering them to actively engage in society. 

The Public Face of Science project was dedicated to exploring the complex and evolving relationship between scientists and the public. This multi-year project engaged the expertise of a broad range of leaders in communication, law, humanities, the arts, journalism, public affairs, and the physical, social, and life sciences.

This project convenes interdisciplinary experts to identify the grand challenges in digital mental health, including policy recommendations for ensuring that AI and other emerging technologies shape mental health diagnosis and treatment ethically and equitably.  

This project studied the influence of Paul Tillich⁠—a distinguished philosophical and cultural theologian and an eminent interpreter of the 20th century⁠—on contemporary life.