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RAND experts have often been among the pioneers of key scientific research, including computer analysis, satellite development, military technology, and the foundations of the Internet. RAND's research has also resulted in the development of new methodologies and ways of analyzing policy issues, from the Delphi method to Robust Decision Making.

Essay

Citizen Science Helps Communities Participate in, Understand, and Trust Science

Jan 4, 2022

Good citizen science brings a community together and helps it prepare for, respond to, and recover from disasters. A RAND guide takes non-expert investigators from the early stages of defining their questions and setting their goals, through building their teams, to planning for action.
Essay

Manipulating the Climate: What Are the Geopolitical Risks?

Dec 29, 2021

Geoengineering technologies that could block the sun's rays or siphon huge amounts of carbon from the air are not that far out of reach. Yet the international community has not established the kinds of guardrails you might expect for potentially world-changing technologies.

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Blog

Geoengineering, the Russia-Ukraine Crisis, Biosimilar Drugs: RAND Weekly Recap

This weekly recap focuses on technologies that manipulate the climate, what NATO could do to address the Ukraine-Russia crisis, and cost savings from biosimilar drugs.

Jan 14, 2022
Journal Article

Tracking the Relocation of Rohingya Refugees in Bangladesh: A Nighttime Lighting Approach

This report uses nighttime lighting data to track the relocation of Rohingya refugees from the Cox's Bazaar region of Bangladesh to Bhasan Char, a 'floating island' in the Bay of Bengal built to house roughly 100,000 refugees.

Jan 14, 2022
Journal Article

A Fairness Evaluation of Automated Methods for Scoring Text Evidence Usage in Writing

We compare three types of Automated Essay Scoring models with respect to algorithmic fairness. Our results indicate that different models exhibit different types of biases, spanning students' gender, race, and socioeconomic status.

Jan 12, 2022
Journal Article

Thinking Outside the Altruistic Box: Why We Need Other Evolutionary Theories to Explain Why Religion Is Religious

This article reviews and critiques prior explanations for the evolution of religious beliefs and suggests new hypotheses that might be more productive for understanding why religion involves beliefs in the gods and the supernatural.

Jan 11, 2022
Blog

Extremism and Substance Use Disorder, Criminal Background Checks, Vaccine Diplomacy: RAND Weekly Recap

This weekly recap focuses on the parallels between extremism and substance use disorder, a better way to measure recidivism risk, global vaccine diplomacy, and more.

Jan 7, 2022
Commentary

Is Russia's Su-75 'Checkmate' Aircraft a Case of Vapor Marketing?

During a Moscow air show last summer, Russia rolled out a mockup of the Su-75, a multipurpose fighter-bomber designed to compete in the global marketplace. But given the Russian aerospace sector's difficulties in developing, let alone delivering, advanced combat aircraft, prospective buyers should consider a range of options to meet defense needs.

Jan 6, 2022
Report

How Different Sampling Methods Paint Vastly Different Pictures of Recidivism, and Why It Matters for Policy

In this paper, the authors argue that the recidivism statistics cited most often in debates about the collateral consequences of conviction overrepresent the behaviors of frequent recidivists and so are not appropriate evidence in those debates.

Jan 6, 2022
Tool

Identifying and Planning for Vulnerabilities in the San Bernardino Valley Municipal Water District’s Water Management Plans

This interactive tool presents the results of a study that evaluated the performance of the San Bernardino Valley Municipal Water District water plans under a range of future conditions, including climate change, drought occurrence, and water demand.

Jan 6, 2022
Journal Article

Decoupling from China: How U.S. Asian Allies Responded to the Huawei Ban

The paper analyzes how Australia, Japan, and South Korea responded to Washington's expectations of mutual support on the decoupling of Chinese technology companies from global supply chains.

Jan 6, 2022
Journal Article

Strategic and Legal Implications of Emerging Dual-Use ASAT Systems

This article addresses the dual-use conundrum of space technology, examining where the threshold lies for anti-satellite systems.

Jan 6, 2022
Blog

What Sounds Do a Million Random Digits Make?

The title of RAND's 1955 classic, A Million Random Digits with 100,000 Normal Deviates, doesn't exactly dance off the page. But Paul Dunham, a sound artist in New Zealand, thought the work could make its own kind of music.

Jan 5, 2022
Report

Proceedings of the U.S.-Japan Socioeconomic Policy Research Exchange: The Rise of Telework Under COVID-19 and the Growth of Cryptocurrency

This volume captures insights from two conferences that brought together leading U.S. and Japanese experts to explore the implications of recent growth in teleworking, working from home, cryptocurrency, and blockchain in the United States and Japan.

Jan 5, 2022
Periodical

RAND Review: January-February 2022

The cover story highlights the risks of geoengineering -- the large-scale manipulation of environmental processes to control climate. The Q&A with Jacqueline Burns sheds light on how her military experience informs her approach to research and analysis.

Jan 4, 2022
Report

Weighing the Cost and Necessity of Nuclear Modernization

The United States has fielded a Triad of air-, sea-, and land-based nuclear delivery systems since the 1950s. Major components are nearing the end of their service lives, raising the question of whether to extend or replace them. Meanwhile, Russia and China continue to modernize, diversify, and expand their nuclear arsenals.

Jan 3, 2022
Blog

The Most Popular RAND Research of 2021

As another extraordinary year draws to a close, we continue to believe that objective, nonpartisan research and analysis has a key role to play in navigating what continues to be a difficult time. Here are the 10 research projects that resonated most with rand.org readers in 2021.

Dec 22, 2021
Journal Article

Conspiracy Theories Have Much in Common. Their Differences May Hold the Key to Identifying When They Turn Violent.

RAND/Google collaboration to improve machine learning models to detect and understand the rhetorical functions of conspiracy theories over social media.

Dec 22, 2021
Blog

RAND Commentary Highlights of 2021

Vaccine rollouts, an attack on the U.S. Capitol, massive ransomware attacks, the withdrawal from Afghanistan, record numbers of job openings and people quitting, and more. RAND researchers weighed in on all these topics and more.

Dec 21, 2021
Journal Article

Adaptive Water Management in the Face of Uncertainty: Integrating Machine Learning, Groundwater Modeling and Robust Decision Making

This study examines climate change and water resources management challenges facing water suppliers in drought-prone regions.

Dec 21, 2021

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RAND Topic:
Science and Technology

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