This study examined the global security implications of expanding commercial and military uses of space, and considered international rules and principles needed to maintain a balanced use of space over the long term.
Human diversity is an enormous cultural and biological resource and a source of social and political tension. The Academy convened a group of scholars to address the controversy over the relative roles of genetics and environment in determining human capacities and behavior.
The Academy organized a multidisciplinary study group to examine the historical evolution of the U.S. corporation, changes in structure and control, the social organization of corporations, the role of the board of directors, and the corporation’s responsibility to its workforce and to society as a whole.
The Academy co-sponsored a workshop to explore the feasibility of the United States and the Soviet Union agreeing to halt production of the radioactive, warhead-boosting agent tritium and to pace steady, significant reductions in their arsenals at the relatively rapid rate of tritium’s decay – the so-called “tritium factor.”
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.
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the Academy organized several conferences and studies devoted to the history, origin, and development of fields of research, such as physics, molecular biology, and bioenergetics.
In 1990, the Academy co-sponsored an interdisciplinary symposium focused on trends in current scholarship on homelessness. The resulting publication critically examined the shortcomings of the research into the causes of homelessness and addressed barriers to remedying this social problem.
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?
In advance of the Academy’s 250th 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.
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.
The Academy initiated this study in 1964 to imagine the future and identify the problem areas and social and intellectual questions likely to be central by the year 2000.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
The Academy joined with the British Commission for Racial Equality and the Policy Studies Institute in London to compare and evaluate America’s and Britain’s policies toward eliminating discrimination and increasing opportunity for racial and cultural minorities.
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.
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.
Working with Argonne National Laboratory and the Midwest Consortium of International Security Studies, the Academy co-sponsored two conferences on global climate change, with one focusing on international security issues and the other focusing on social and economic consequences.
