With new surgical techniques, like heart transplants, becoming indispensable tools in prolonging human life, the issue of human experimentation became a matter of increasing public interest. The Academy created an interdisciplinary working group to study the ethics of human experimentation, and the working group’s papers were initially published in Dædalus in 1969.

Managing the ABM Treaty Regime into the 21st Century: This study analyzed ways in which the underlying objectives of the 1972 Antiballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. could continue to be realized in the future.

The Academy sponsored a conference on genetic engineering, examining both the risks and possible benefits. The resulting volume of papers concentrates on the scientific principles required to understand the issues that lie at the core of public concern and, therefore, of policy development.

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 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.

As a member of the U.S. National Commission for UNESCO, the Academy formed a special committee to examine, and consider Academy action in response to, the “politicization” of UNESCO.

The Academy co-funded a conference at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University to explore emerging scholarly work on the social and psychological characteristics of adulthood as a distinct stage in the human life cycle.

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.

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.

The Academy hosted a conference to allow scholars an opportunity to systematically analyze the critical issues involved with chemical weapons policy and to develop a framework for official deliberations among nations.

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.

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 advance of the Academy’s 250^th anniversary in 2030, the Academy is developing a book illuminating the organization’s history. The publication will examine where the Academy has fallen short of its goals to advance the common good and where it has excelled, and what it has meant for the nation it was created to serve.

In 1985, the Academy hosted a major international symposium commemorating the 100th anniversary of the birth of Niels Bohr, the great Danish physicist and the “father of quantum mechanics.” The symposium’s papers were published in collective volume in 1988.

Using Chicago as a case study, this study of the future of the American metropolis addressed the challenges facing metropolitan areas in spheres such as public transportation, land use and housing, governance and taxation, and economic well-being.

New Dilemmas in Ethics, Technology and War is a three-year study exploring the intricate, rapidly evolving relationship between advancements in military technology and the moral and ethical dilemmas that new technologies pose for states, international organizations, and global society. 

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 examined the factors underlying recent scandals at a number of American corporations. The project’s publication, Restoring Trust in American Business, includes a set of recommendations for rebuilding the trust upon which the American system of capitalism depends.

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.

For this project, the Academy co-sponsored a series of symposia and conferences to examine censorship from a variety of perspectives. In the resulting volume of essays, an interdisciplinary group of scholars analyzed efforts to regulate speech and examined the subsequent cultural implications.