Past Grants

Ilan Goldenberg will explore whether the United States and its Arab state partners could develop a combined irregular and unconventional warfare capability to counter both Iran’s Quds Force and Sunni jihadist groups. He will research primary and secondary sources, undertake field work, and convene expert roundtable meetings to examine whether the United States should pursue the creation of a multinational joint task force with Arab partners to prevail in irregular wars across the Middle East. The project’s findings will appear in a report.

Paul Rieckhoff will explore how best to tailor veterans’ programs to support veterans of conflict in Afghanistan and Iraq. The project’s findings will appear in a series of papers and briefings.

Devesh Kapur will convene an annual conference to facilitate an interaction between younger researchers and their senior counterparts on issues related to India’s security and defense policies.

Marcus Winters, Joshua Cowen, and Scott Imberman will examine whether liberalizing the rules that govern the hiring, assessment, and retention of teachers can help improve the performance of schools. Using nine years of data on all students in Massachusetts traditional public and charter schools, they will identify patterns of teacher hiring, retention, and mobility across different types of schools. This analysis will help reveal whether charter schools, which have more freedom to make their own choices in terms of staffing than traditional public schools, are better able to attract and retain high-quality teachers. The project’s findings will appear in a report and a series of articles and briefings.

Dane Stangler will research and write a book examining steps that cities are taking to foster entrepreneurship and considering whether those efforts can increase business formation and spur economic growth. He will undertake case studies of efforts in more than a dozen cities to support entrepreneurs through innovation centers, startup accelerators, business plan competitions, and partnerships with local universities. He will seek to better understand whether such efforts are leading to increases in new business formation, new employment and economic growth.

David Barno and Nora Bensahel will research and write a book exploring whether the U.S. military is sufficiently “adaptable under fire” and how the armed services could improve their adaptability to cope with the demands of an increasingly unpredictable strategic environment. They will examine the subject of military adaptation and analyze how this attribute can be cultivated through improvements in military doctrine, support for technological innovation, and leadership development.

John Kamm will direct the work of the Dui Hua Foundation to examine President Xi Jinping’s efforts to suppress dissent and repress civil society and to assess the implications of these policies for China’s political evolution. He will conduct research on changes in Chinese law and regulations as well as the cases of individual political detainees; conduct quarterly trips to China to discuss these cases with representatives of the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Justice; and engage in policy outreach to governments and multilateral organizations involved in human rights advocacy vis-à-vis China. The project’s findings will appear in a series of papers, reports, and other publications.

Henry Sokolski and Zachary Keck will research and write a book assessing the impact on U.S. national security of nuclear proliferation among U.S. allies. They will conduct archival research and interviews with policymakers who have experience with the proliferation decisions of the United Kingdom, France, Israel, and Pakistan.

Robert Litan will lead an effort to explore how research by economists informs public policy debates. He will assess how a new generation of economists reshaped the discipline by placing a greater emphasis on empirical analysis of “big data” and fielding experimental evaluations. The project’s findings will appear in a report.