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.

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 1994, nearly one hundred university leaders, scholars of scientific research, and executives from industry convened at Stanford University to examine the nature and significance of developments in university-industry research relationships over the previous fifteen years.

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.

After an examination of research literature showed that evaluations of many educational interventions were nearly useless because they provided little reliable information about whether programs worked, the Academy created The Center for Evaluation to apply meta-analysis to the problem. Researchers extracted information from experimental data from multiple sources to analyze studies on topics such as optimum class size and grouping students according to skill levels.

The ARISE project and its resulting report sought to foster a new generation of scientists and stimulate innovation to generate competitive advantage in a global economy.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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 project examined the evolving relationship between Congress and the Supreme Court. Among other issues, it addressed the Supreme Court's increasing willingness to place constitutional limits on Congress' power to enact statutes; the judicial nomination and confirmation process; and questions of statutory interpretation.

This study addressed an urgent issue: How can NATO improve its conventional weapons capacity to enhance its deterrent to aggression and lessen its dependence on possible early use of nuclear weapons?

The Commission on the Humanities and Social Sciences claimed a space in the national dialogue for the humanities and the social sciences and recommended specific steps that government, schools and universities, cultural institutions, businesses, and philanthropies could take to support and strengthen these areas of knowledge.

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 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.