Redesigning the International Approach to Climate Change — Jul. 2010

Limiting climate change requires a revolution in the way the global economy generates and consumes energy, as discussed by Robert Lempert, director of the Frederick S. Pardee Center for Longer Range Global Policy and the Future Human Condition at the RAND Corporation, that appeared in The Huffington Post.

Commentary Read the full commentary at The Huffington Post

Robust Decision Making — Apr. 2010

Robert Lempert, Director of the Frederick S. Pardee Center for Longer Range Global Policy and the Future Human Condition, highlights the Robust Decision Making (RDM) method and presents an example of how RDM allowed a municipal water utility to revise their long term plans while still considering climate change.

View the Video

Pardee Center Director Named First EADS Distinguished Vistor of Energy and Environment at the American Academy in Berlin — Mar. 2010

Pardee Center director Robert Lempert has been named the first EADS Distinguished Vistor of Energy and Environment at the American Academy in Berlin. Lempert will spend the first week of May at the Academy meeting with German leaders in government, business, and academy. He will deliver a public lecture on Managing Long-Term Change.

Read more at the American Academy of Berlin web site
Read more about Robert Lempert’s Lecture at the American Academy of Berlin, on May 6, 2010, Managing Long-Term Change: Can We Successfully Shape Our Future in Unpredictable Times?

Pardee Center to help Metropolitan Water District of Southern California Develop a Fifty Year Plan — Mar. 2010

Pardee Center will support the Metropolitan Water District's “2060” Blue Ribbon Committee that will identify and recommend new business models and strategies to help Southern California meet its long-term water needs. Pardee Center team also includes researchers from UCLA, Stanford, and will be assisted by Arellano Associates.

Read more are the Business Wire web site

RAND Pardee Center Begins New 'Searchlight' activity for the Rockefeller Foundation — Jan. 2010

The RAND Pardee Center is joining with almost a dozen other organizations worldwide to provide the Rockefeller Foundation provide early warning of emerging issues that might affect the Foundation’s work associated with development, poverty, and vulnerable populations. In addition to the RAND Pardee Center, Rockefeller has asked the following institutions to join in this endeavor:

• SA Node of the Millennium Project (South Africa)
• Centre for Democracy and Development (Nigeria)
• Society for International Development (Tanzania)
• Strategic Foresight Group (India)
• Intellecap, Inc. (India)
• Noviscape Consulting Group (Thailand)
• National Institute of Science and Technology Policy and Strategy Studies (NISTPASS) (Vietnam)
• Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore (Singapore)
• FORO Nacional/Internacional (Peru)
• The Rockefeller Foundation (Nairobi and Bangkok Offices)

Thinking inside the box: A participatory, computer-assisted approach to scenario discovery — Oct. 2009

Scenarios provide a commonly used and intuitively appealing means to communicate and characterize uncertainty in many decision support applications, but can fall short of their potential especially when used in broad public debates among participants with diverse interests and values. This paper in the journal Technology Forecasting and Social Change describes a new approach to participatory, computer-assisted scenario development that we call scenario discovery, which aims to address these challenges. This paper systematically describes the scenario discovery concept and its implementation, presents statistical tests to evaluate the resulting scenarios, and demonstrates the approach on an example policy problem involving the efficacy of a proposed U.S. renewable energy standard. The paper also describes how scenario discovery appears to address several outstanding challenges faced when applying traditional scenario approaches in contentious public debates.

Read More

Shaping Tomorrow Today: Near-Term Steps Towards Long-Term Goals — Aug. 2009

In March 2009, the RAND Pardee Center hosted a workshop called “Shaping Tomorrow Today: Near-Term Steps Towards Long-Term Goals.” The workshop gave policymakers and analysts an opportunity to explore new methods and tools that can help improve long-term decisionmaking. The proceedings from this important event are now available.

Full Document

Pardee Center Helps European Environment Agency Review Evaluative Literature on Scenarios — June 2009

Scenarios are often used to facilitate long-term thinking. But are they effective? The Pardee Center helped the European Environmental Agency review the sparse literature examining the effectiveness of scenarios for long-term planning.

Read More