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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

This project investigated how environmental degradation and depletion of natural resources might contribute to social strife and conflict in many parts of the world.

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.

As the economic and technological gap widened between the developed nations and the developing world, the Academy, the National Academy of Sciences, and other scientific organizations considered the feasibility of establishing an International Foundation for Science to support the research of young scientists and technical investigators in developing countries. In 1972, the IFS was established as a nongovernmental organization in Stockholm.

This project investigated the function and historical role of learned societies in advancing research and stimulating communication about scientific and scholarly ideas, not only within the intellectual community but among segments of the larger society.

This project traced the development of the modern general-purpose philanthropic foundation and assessed its role in philanthropy as a whole, as compared with the roles played by government, business corporations, company-affiliated foundations, individual donors, community-service organizations, and other participants in philanthropic activity.

In 1969, the American Council of Learned Societies, of which the Academy is a founding member, convened its annual meeting to examine confrontation and challenges to the value of scholarship in society, inspired by the dissident rebellions at institutions of higher education in 1968.

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.

Against a background of changing international politics, the Academy convened a multidisciplinary conference to analyze the direction of international security, to explore current and foreseeable sources of conflict, to examine the instruments that might be used in these conflicts, and to discuss ways that future conflicts might be mitigated.

In 1990, the Academy co-sponsored an interdisciplinary symposium focused on trends in current scholarship on homelessness. The resulting publication critically examined the shortcomings of the research into the causes of homelessness and addressed barriers to remedying this social problem.

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.

This study examined the global security implications of expanding commercial and military uses of space, and considered international rules and principles needed to maintain a balanced use of space over the long term.

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.

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 constantly evolving nature of the Internet raises questions about its use and security. This project investigated how the complex social issues of identity, access, and trust will affect the future of the Internet.