Past Grants

Richard Betts will organize an annual summer study program to train young scholars to analyze military strategy, combat operations, and defense budgets and programs.

Judith Scott-Clayton and Jordan Matsudaira will direct the research and publications program of a policy lab at the Community College Research Center. The initiative will examine how best to ensure that public and private investments in college lead to increases in economic opportunity and social mobility. In partnership with the City University of New York, they will explore what factors and programs enable students to succeed in the transition to employment and to earn more in the labor market over time. The project’s findings will appear in a variety of reports, policy briefs, and presentations.

Susan Dynarski and Katherine Michelmore will evaluate whether a program to recruit more high-performing students from low-income families to attend an elite public university is an effective means to promote economic mobility. They will measure the initiative’s impact on college enrollment, course-taking, and degree attainment among a sample of Michigan high school students who were actively recruited to enroll at the University of Michigan. The project’s findings will appear in a series of articles and briefings for state policymakers.

Andrea Kendall-Taylor and David Shullman will examine a variety of scenarios for the evolution of China-Russia relations and explore the scenarios’ implications for great power politics in Eurasia. They will collect and analyze primary and secondary Russian and Chinese literature, organize a one-day exercise to explore alternative scenarios for the Russia-China relationship, and host workshops designed to develop policy responses to challenges arising from those scenarios. The project’s findings will appear in a report and briefings for the policy and intelligence communities.

Hillel Fradkin, Hussain Haqqani, and Eric Brown will edit and publish Current Trends in Islamist Ideology, a journal that analyzes the ideological and political debates within and among transnational Islamist movements.

Fred Doolittle will direct the research and publications program of the Learning from Administrative Data Project. He will measure the long-term impacts of policies and programs designed to increase economic opportunity and social mobility by linking data from an inventory of randomized controlled trials to administrative records of employment, earnings, post-secondary degree attainment, and receipt of public assistance. The project’s findings will appear in a series of reports and policy briefs.

Logan Wright, Lauren Gloudeman, and Daniel Rosen will examine the short- and long-term vulnerabilities that could produce a crisis in the Chinese economy. They will analyze primary Chinese source materials and secondary literature on the Chinese economy, and collect and analyze data related to credit risks, fiscal risks, property sector risks, and external risks. They will use this material to produce a “risk matrix” for China’s economy. The project’s findings will appear in a monograph and a series of policy articles and briefings.

Alison Pargeter and Jonathan Hill will research and write a book examining the tribal politics of Libya and Iraq in order to shed light on subnational politics that are shaping the political and security landscape of the Middle East. They will analyze scholarly literature, media reports, and archival materials on tribal dynamics in Libya and Iraq, as well as national and local elections, and conduct field work in the region.