In collaboration with the Royal Society of Canada, the Academy sponsored a symposium in 1976 in Quebec to discuss the revolutionary tradition in Canada and America, and how each nation has dealt with revolutionary goals in the context of contemporary issues.

This project examined higher education and research in Germany and the United States.

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.

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

The Alternative Energy Future project examines how to facilitate the adoption of cleaner and more efficient energy technologies using knowledge from the social and behavioral sciences.

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.

This project studied the influence of Paul Tillich⁠—a distinguished philosophical and cultural theologian and an eminent interpreter of the 20th century⁠—on contemporary life.

Located around the globe but operated by American parent institutions, interdisciplinary American Overseas Advanced Research Centers provide essential support to American humanistic and social science scholars working in foreign countries.

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.

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.

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.

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.

To address a deepening crisis in the lives of America’s children, the Academy organized a steering committee to explore how the Academy could increase the nation’s commitment to and investment in children.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.