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 project attempted to deal constructively with the principal issues raised by the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI). The resulting report, initially published as a double-issue of Dædalus, does not reach conclusions about the desirability or feasibility of the SDI; rather, it presents favorable, opposing, and skeptical views about the relevant scientific, technological, strategic, and political issues involved.

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.

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.

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.

Challenges for International Scientific Partnerships aimed to articulate the benefits of international collaboration and recommend solutions to the most pressing challenges associated with the design and operation of partnerships. This initiative sought to identify policy recommendations and best practices to mitigate challenges for international science collaborations, including physical facilities, distributed networks, and peer-to-peer partnerships.

A follow up to an earlier Academy study titled “Environmental Change and Acute Conflict,” this project examined how state capacity influences governmental responses to environmental scarcities, and potential subsequent conflict, in developing countries.

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.

One-third of the earth’s land surface is arid or semi-arid. In 1975, in celebration of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s 50th anniversary, leading scientists from Israel and the U.S. convened at the Academy to participate in a two-day program devoted to the problems and potentialities relating to the development of the world’s arid regions.

IIASA was formed in 1972 to provide a venue for collaboration between Western and Eastern bloc scientists on non-military matters, such as global energy needs, environmental change, and human health concerns.

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.

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.

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.

At a time when national and international leaders were involved in a debate over restraints on chemical and biological weapons, the Academy, with the Salk Institute, organized a conference to illuminate the most important public policy issues raised by the existence of chemical and biological weapons.

Using the field of chemistry as a case study, this project probed how the expansion of electronic communications is altering the collection, dissemination, and storage of scholarly information.

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

An Academy study group looked at the intellectual and ethical dilemmas faced by U.S. professors as they balance responsibilities to their students, their disciplines, the university, and the broader community.

This project focused on the critical importance of civic engagement to issues of democratization and economic development, in the U. S. and in developing countries with the aim of sharpening the concept of “social capital” — that is, social networks, norms, institutions and trust — through sustained dialogue among social theorists and empirical researchers.

The focus of this study was to better understand the role of Confucianism - long thought to be incompatible with the spirit of capitalism - in industrialization.

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.