In 1969, during a time of great student unrest across the country, the Academy founded The Assembly on University Goals and Governance to study a series of issues in higher education that were not directly linked to the problems of disorder.
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 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.
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.
Published as a double issue of the Academy’s journal, Dædalus, this study is a comprehensive survey of the problems and the status of Blacks in American society, a topic of great urgency at the time. The resulting volume has been considered seminal in explaining the complexities and implications of racial problems in the United States in the 1960s.
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 co-sponsored a conference at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, that invited philosophers and political scientists to examine what was driving the global resurgence of nationalism and to discuss how the conflicts it engenders can be resolved.
This project focused on the critical importance of civic engagement to issues of democratization and economic development, in the U. S. and in developing countries with the aim of sharpening the concept of “social capital” — that is, social networks, norms, institutions and trust — through sustained dialogue among social theorists and empirical researchers.
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.
By convening scholars, practitioners, and policy-makers with representatives of the courts, legal aid providers, and foundations, the project seeks to understand and assess the challenge of providing legal services for low-income Americans.
What is corruption? How does it work? Why does it matter? This project examined these questions and investigated the link between corruption and political and economic transformation, as well as the effects of corruption in the larger international setting.
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.
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.
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.
This study investigated the rationale, the means, and the consequences of providing high-quality primary and secondary education to all the world's children.
This major comparative study of anti-modernist, anti-secular militant religious movements on five continents and within seven world religious traditions resulted in multiple influential publications.
This project focused on the meaning of “public interest” communication in a 500-channel marketplace, with particular emphasis on television’s failure to fulfill its potential as an educational medium.
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.
An Academy study group looked at the intellectual and ethical dilemmas faced by U.S. professors as they balance responsibilities to their students, their disciplines, the university, and the broader community.
