As the second phase of Meeting the Challenges of the New Nuclear Age, this initiative explored challenges created by “new” nuclear weapons states, potential proliferators, and de facto nuclear weapons states.

The Commission on the Arts is a multi-year project with distinguished cochairs, more than $1 million of support from foundations and individuals, and a commitment to exploring the role of the arts in American life, with an emphasis on arts education and infrastructure.

This project brought together educators and practitioners to explore ways to foster strong, ethical leadership skills in three arenas critical to American society: business, law, and the university.

This project was designed to advance a set of clear, national recommendations for closing the justice gap that currently exists between the demand for civil legal services and the supply.

This conference had its origins in the divergence that was clearly taking place in 1982 between the traditional arms control community and the freeze movement. The conference brought together freeze proponents, arms control specialists, government officials, and public interest group leaders in the hope that some differences could be resolved, the essential issues identified, and an agenda of work formulated. The proceedings were subsequently published.

The Academy appointed a study group to examine the issues raised when American universities consider education, research, or service agreements with institutions in countries possibly involved in serious violations of human rights in general and, more specifically, of academic freedom.

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.

Twenty two biological and social scientists from academic, research, governmental, and international institutions gathered for a symposium to discuss how the academic community might help mitigate the ravages of hunger and malnutrition worldwide.

In 1973, the Academy formed a planning committee to explore the development and creation in the United States of an institute for advanced humanistic studies, somewhat analogous to the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences in Palo Alto and the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton.

This project examines the relationship between legal systems and the cultures in which they are embedded, with particular emphasis on the legal profession.

The International Criminal Court is designed to bring to justice individuals who commit genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. The Academy brought together legal, political, and military experts to examine the proposed International Criminal Court and its meaning for US security.

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.

The Academy initiated this study in 1964 to imagine the future and identify the problem areas and social and intellectual questions likely to be central by the year 2000.

This multi-disciplinary Academy initiative is focused on the urgent global challenge of climate change and recommending meaningful actions to accelerate climate mitigation and adaptation strategies for all Americans.

The Academy was instrumental in the establishment in 1970 of the International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology (ICIPE) in Nairobi, Kenya. The goal of the ICIPE is to develop more effective and less dangerous pesticides through a greater understanding of insect biology.

This major comparative study of anti-modernist, anti-secular militant religious movements on five continents and within seven world religious traditions resulted in multiple influential publications.

By the early 1970s, much of the conceptual base for arms control efforts remained grounded in the Academy’s 1960 project and special issue of Dædalus on arms control.

The Academy designed this study to act as a roadmap for transportation policy-makers, students, and concerned citizens. Calling for changes in policies and social habits, the resulting report offered strategies to minimize and resolve the problems raised by the increasing use of automobiles in urban areas.

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

The Academy co-funded a conference at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University to explore emerging scholarly work on the social and psychological characteristics of adulthood as a distinct stage in the human life cycle.