The Academy joined with the British Commission for Racial Equality and the Policy Studies Institute in London to compare and evaluate America’s and Britain’s policies toward eliminating discrimination and increasing opportunity for racial and cultural minorities.
This project brought together physical scientists, legal experts, space program directors, economists, political scientists, and policymakers from all space-faring nations to discuss how to mitigate the problem of ever-increasing quantities of man-made orbital debris in space.
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.
The ARISE II project developed actionable recommendations to sustain a competitive U.S. research enterprise. This work was designed to foster new relationships across the disciplines and between the private and public sectors.
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.
The Academy convened a group of business people, public officials, and scholars from the physical sciences, social sciences, and humanities to discuss changing expectations for the future of society and culture.
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the Academy organized several conferences and studies devoted to the history, origin, and development of fields of research, such as physics, molecular biology, and bioenergetics.
In 1962, the Academy received a grant from NASA to study the long-range effects of space exploration on American life. At a time when the nation was committing enormous and unprecedented financial, scientific and manpower resources to the NASA program, the Academy study was charged with investigating the potential consequences, intended and unintended, of this mobilization on various sectors of society.
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.
In 1969, during a time of great student unrest across the country, the Academy founded The Assembly on University Goals and Governance to study a series of issues in higher education that were not directly linked to the problems of disorder.
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.
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 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.
This project investigated how environmental degradation and depletion of natural resources might contribute to social strife and conflict in many parts of the world.
Published as a double issue of the Academy’s journal, Dædalus, this study is a comprehensive survey of the problems and the status of Blacks in American society, a topic of great urgency at the time. The resulting volume has been considered seminal in explaining the complexities and implications of racial problems in the United States in the 1960s.
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.
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 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.
Most Americans seek a more coherent, collaborative, national conversation in which individual interests can be aligned with the greater good. This project analyzed American institutions to develop a better understanding of their role in the American democratic system and to develop proposals to increase civic participation and public confidence in American leaders and institutions.
