What is the intellectual atmosphere like?
RAND prides itself on quality and independence. Elsewhere on the site you’ll find descriptions of the RAND culture. (See information on the RAND research environment.) Suffice it to say that you’re free to think big, think creatively, and think rigorously. Some think tanks have an ideological flavor. RAND does not. It is not that RAND is at the center of the political spectrum, rather that it prides itself in being above (or beyond?) any such spectrum. Both fellows and faculty are diverse in their politics, but they put objectivity before ideology. When clients ask RAND to do research, they can help determine the questions investigated but never the answers obtained. In fact, RAND is famous for sometimes redefining the questions our clients and partners bring to us. This is what our sponsors–public, private, and non-profit institutions, or mixtures of them–come to demand: creativity as well as rigor. This does not at all mean that RAND researchers are insensitive to the realities their
RAND prides itself on quality and independence. Elsewhere on the site you’ll find descriptions of the RAND culture. (See information on the RAND research environment.) Suffice it to say that you’re free to think big, think creatively, and think rigorously. Some think tanks have an ideological flavor. RAND does not. It is not that RAND is at the center of the political spectrum, rather that it prides itself in being above (or beyond?) any such spectrum. Both students and faculty are diverse in their politics, but they put objectivity before ideology. When clients ask RAND to do research, they can help determine the questions investigated but never the answers obtained. In fact, RAND is famous for sometimes redefining the questions our clients and partners bring to us. This is what our sponsors–public, private, and non-profit institutions, or mixtures of them–come to demand: creativity as well as rigor. This does not at all mean that RAND researchers are insensitive to the realities thei
