Research & Commentary

Commentary

Sep 8, 2026

25 Years After 9/11: Lessons for Securing the Homeland

Reflecting on 25 years since the September 11 terror attacks, RAND experts answer questions about protecting soft targets, the role of the TSA, mitigating risks from emerging technologies, and more.
Research

Sep 3, 2026

Buying Time Against AI Proliferation: The Economics of Governed Access

The author describes a formal model of artificial intelligence (AI) adoption and proliferation that focuses on the demand for AI capability.
Sep 2, 2026

A Standardized Framework for Assessing High-Risk Life Sciences Research

Two recent federal policies establish funding prohibitions and research review requirements for certain life sciences pathogen or toxin research. In response, researchers recommend an objective, transparent decisionmaking framework with defined dangerous gain-of-function (DGOF) criteria.
Expert Insights

Sep 2, 2026

Countering Model Distillation: Limits and Alternatives

Artificial intelligence model distillation (training new models on outputs of more capable ones) could affect U.S. frontier model advantage. New policy tools could augment such technical countermeasures as raising costs or reducing model quality.
Expert Insights

Aug 27, 2026

Hardening Critical Infrastructure Software in an Era of Rapid AI Advancement: An Urgent Call for Coordinated Action

This paper provides expert analysis on artificial intelligence–accelerated vulnerability discovery and the structural hardening of critical infrastructure software.
Research

Aug 25, 2026

Achieving AI Model Weight Security Level 3 (SL3)

RAND proposes Security Level 3 (SL3), a framework of 262 security controls to protect artificial intelligence (AI) model weights against organized cybercrime and insider threats, achievable within six to 12 months.
Research

Aug 24, 2026

Leveraging the Federal Select Agent Program to Oversee Nucleic Acids: Volume 2, Potential Benefits and Burdens, Recommendations, and Implementation Considerations

The increasing availability of synthetic genetic materials poses public health risks that may warrant regulation, but in deciding how to do so, it is also necessary to weigh the burdens on industry and the research community.
Research

Aug 24, 2026

Leveraging the Federal Select Agent Program to Oversee Nucleic Acids: Volume 1, Analysis of Opportunities to Control Genomes, Genes, and Gene Fragments Through the Federal Select Agent Program’s Authorities

The increasing availability of synthetic genetic materials may pose public health risks that may warrant regulation to ensure that certain materials are accessible only to researchers who will use them responsibly.
Research

Aug 21, 2026

Realising the 100 Days Mission

The speed at which vaccines and other medical countermeasures can be developed and deployed is critical. The 100 Days Mission aims to accelerate readiness, helping contain emerging pathogens before they become global emergencies.
Expert Insights

Aug 18, 2026

How to Broker Peace in Ukraine: Decades of Hard-Won Mediation Experience Point the Way

This article draws on decades of international mediation experience to explain how the United States could better broker peace between Russia and Ukraine, and why getting the negotiating process right is as important as the substance of any deal.
Expert Insights

Aug 18, 2026

Mirror Biology Research: Implications for Operational Governance

There is growing scientific and policy attention being paid to the risks of mirror life, but recognition of the problem has so far outpaced the development of concrete oversight. Researchers consider how the governance of mirror biology research might begin to be operationalized.
Press

Aug 18, 2026

RAND Outlines Layered Defense Strategy to Mitigate AI-Enabled Bioweapon Risk

No single safeguard can prevent an actor from using artificial intelligence to help build a biological weapon, but nine interventions layered together could meaningfully lower the risk of a high consequence AI-enabled biological attack.

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Research & Commentary

Featured

Strategic Autonomy in the Age of Artificial Intelligence

25 Years After 9/11: Lessons for Securing the Homeland

A Standardized Framework for Assessing High-Risk Life Sciences Research

Realising the 100 Days Mission

All Global and Emerging Risks Research & Commentary

Error

25 Years After 9/11: Lessons for Securing the Homeland

Buying Time Against AI Proliferation: The Economics of Governed Access

A Standardized Framework for Assessing High-Risk Life Sciences Research

Countering Model Distillation: Limits and Alternatives

Hardening Critical Infrastructure Software in an Era of Rapid AI Advancement: An Urgent Call for Coordinated Action

Achieving AI Model Weight Security Level 3 (SL3)

Leveraging the Federal Select Agent Program to Oversee Nucleic Acids: Volume 2, Potential Benefits and Burdens, Recommendations, and Implementation Considerations

Leveraging the Federal Select Agent Program to Oversee Nucleic Acids: Volume 1, Analysis of Opportunities to Control Genomes, Genes, and Gene Fragments Through the Federal Select Agent Program’s Authorities

Realising the 100 Days Mission

How to Broker Peace in Ukraine: Decades of Hard-Won Mediation Experience Point the Way

Mirror Biology Research: Implications for Operational Governance

RAND Outlines Layered Defense Strategy to Mitigate AI-Enabled Bioweapon Risk

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