This project brought together American and Japanese scholars and decision-makers to discuss the security problems of East Asia and the Western Pacific. Participants met five times over several years, in the United States and in Japan.

In 1994, the Committee on International Security Studies (CISS) hosted the first major international workshop on the dangers posed by the increased proliferation of small arms and light weapons to areas of conflict around the world.

This study examined two mechanisms that allow for interchange between science and society: governmental science policy (often involving the participation of "scientist administrators") and scientists’ voluntary public-interest associations. The resulting book also looked at the activities of citizen-scientists who have organized themselves to promote the welfare of society.

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.

The Academy was instrumental in the establishment in 1970 of the International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology (ICIPE) in Nairobi, Kenya. The goal of the ICIPE is to develop more effective and less dangerous pesticides through a greater understanding of insect biology.

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.

While the digital revolution has changed the nature of news distribution, it has not diminished the need for ambitious, accurate, and reliable journalism in American society. This project looked at the evolving role of the media in today’s world, in general, and analyzed how reporters cover science and economic issues, in particular.

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.

Representatives of two of the world’s major industrial nations, and thus major polluters, the U.S. and the U.S.S.R., met in August 1991 at the Rockefeller Conference Center in Bellagio, Italy, to discuss ways to improve environmental protection practices in the two nations.

This project responded to growing concern over new developments in the Soviet-American nuclear competition. The Academy convened a conference to examine the emerging belief that the present second-strike, and thus deterrent, capabilities of missile-carrying nuclear submarines could be eroded by technological advances in strategic antisubmarine warfare.

This project examined superpower relations during the Cold War as a cooperative effort in order to illuminate the constraints and opportunities that will influence possible superpower cooperation in the future.

The Academy convened a program of conferences and studies that led to the seminal 1960 special issue of Dædalus on arms control, which President John F. Kennedy subsequently called the “Bible” on the subject.

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

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 conference had its origins in the divergence that was clearly taking place in 1982 between the traditional arms control community and the freeze movement. The conference brought together freeze proponents, arms control specialists, government officials, and public interest group leaders in the hope that some differences could be resolved, the essential issues identified, and an agenda of work formulated. The proceedings were subsequently published.

In 1972, when the word “ethnicity” was first introduced to the Oxford English Dictionary, the Academy convened a conference with the goal of assessing this widespread phenomenon, which was becoming an important and explanatory factor in the political arena throughout the world.

A group of scholars from the historical, psychological, psychiatric, and social science disciplines met in a series of seminars to explore the interplay between individual psychology and historical change.

An Academy study group evaluated the potential of a proposed joint U.S.-Russian center for the exchange of data on missile launches.

The Forum, a collaboration of higher education leaders and scholars, launched in 1984 and moved to the Academy in 2022. The Higher Education Forum is an opportunity for the Academy to provide leadership and learning on pressing issues in higher education with a cross-disciplinary and cross-sector approach that draws on the strengths of its members and Affiliates.

This project brought together experts in the biological sciences, physical sciences, and social sciences to examine the evolution and origin of human biology, behavior, and society.