Past Grants

Jesse Kirkpatrick and Gregory Koblentz will assess the implications for biological warfare and biodefense of the new genomic engineering technique known as Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR). They will review and synthesize research from the scientific, public policy, and national security literature; commission a series of papers; and organize two workshops involving experts from the national security and scientific communities. The project’s findings will appear in a white paper, a visualization website, and a series of briefings and presentations.

Sulmaan Wasif Khan will research and write a book analyzing China’s grand strategy in the period since the Communist revolution in 1949.

Cynthia Miller and Lawrence Katz will examine whether expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) to adults without children can increase employment rates and earnings. They will undertake an experimental evaluation of a program in Atlanta that provides an annual wage supplement of as much as $2,000 to working adults. After three years, the researchers will measure the program’s impact on employment, earnings, and other measures of wellbeing. The project’s findings will appear in a series of reports and briefings for policymakers.

Paul Scharre and Michael Horowitz will lead an effort to identify the trends, opportunities, and risks associated with developments in artificial intelligence for international security issues. They will convene experts on artificial intelligence, ethics, technology, and security. The project’s findings will appear in a report.

Kimberly Kagan, Jessica Lewis McFate, Jennifer Cafarella, and Jim Dubik will lead an effort to develop policy options to defeat the Islamic State and al Qaida, influence the evolution of Iraq, and respond to Russia’s global military assertiveness. The team will analyze open-source intelligence and undertake strategic planning to examine alternative courses of action and recommend strategies to the U.S. government and policy community. The project’s findings will appear in a series of reports, short papers, and briefs.

Mark Kramer and Timothy Colton will edit and publish the Journal of Cold War Studies.

Daniel Goldhaber, Susan Dynarski, and Carrie Conaway will organize an effort to increase opportunities for education policy researchers to share findings from their work with public officials and policy practitioners at the Association of Education Finance and Policy’s annual research conference. Participants will learn about new research findings and develop relationships to enable the sharing of data and facilitate future research opportunities.

Richard Morgenstern and Arthur Fraas will lead a research agenda to improve the capacity of the policy community to measure the costs and benefits of regulations. They will engage with staff from federal agencies and Congress to identify the key barriers to making greater use of evidence to measure the cost and benefits of existing regulations, review and synthesize findings from existing retrospective regulatory analyses, and develop a list of regulations that would be good candidates for independent retrospective analyses. The project’s findings will appear in a series of reports, papers, and briefings for policymakers.

S. Frederick Starr and Svante Cornell will direct the research and publications program of the Central Asia–Caucasus Institute. The institute’s work will include: a reexamination of the efficacy of U.S. policy toward countries in the region; an exploration of how to encourage collaboration among the countries in the region; an analysis of Russia’s resurgent ambitions; an assessment of the nature and implications of the “Soviet hangover” that shapes the region’s culture and politics; and the development of an initiative to help the Afghan government design a transport network to support regional trade and transit. The project’s findings will appear in a variety of publications, public events, and briefings for the policy community.