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2019 RAND Annual Report

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2019 RAND Annual Report ANNUAL REPORT 2019 THE RAND CORPORATION IS A RESEARCH ORGANIZATION THAT DEVELOPS SOLUTIONS TO PUBLIC POLICY CHALLENGES TO HELP MAKE COMMUNITIES THROUGHOUT THE WORLD SAFER AND MORE SECURE, HEALTHIER AND MORE PROSPEROUS. THE CAMPAIGN FOR RAND MESSAGE FROM THE CHAIR AND THE PRESIDENT RAND’s mission—to help improve policy and decisionmaking through research and analysis—guides the topics we choose to tackle, our methodological approaches, and our outreach. This year, it also helped inspire RAND to launch its most ambitious fundraising campaign to date. Our campaign is focused on five priorities. Countering truth decay. “Truth decay” is the term we use to describe the diminishing role of facts and analysis in public life. As a nonpartisan institution that seeks to advance the public good through research and analysis, RAND is the only research institution that has already invested in an initiative to counter this grave, existential threat. Rethinking and retooling institutions. The 20th century saw the establishment of some of the world’s most strategic and beneficent organizations. RAND will help to design a revitalized set of institutions to promote security, stability, and prosperity for the century to come—institutions essential to the disciplined, long-term, consensus-driven, and coalition-building efforts on which clear, well-supported policy depends. Strengthening and safeguarding communities. In confronting global problems such as social and economic inequity, unsustainable cities, migration and displacement, and the health of an aging population, RAND understands the need to solve these problems where people are already experiencing them firsthand—in local communities. By working at the front lines of need, RAND can pilot and refine practical tools and approaches that others can deploy right away. Catalyzing a new era of problem-solving. The Pardee RAND Graduate School has a crucial role to play in fulfilling our campaign goals: It is an engine of new ideas and talent, and a vital platform for new tools and strategies. We will share what we develop with others, greatly expanding our capacity to bring about positive change. Ensuring agility. While the scope of the problems we are prepared to address is broad, the scope of emerging problems is even broader. Philanthropic dollars will allow us to meet unanticipated analytic needs rapidly and respond with agility to new research opportunities and evolving research priorities. This annual report spotlights select research on critical topics we tackled in 2019—everything from disaster recovery efforts, the fentanyl crisis, and innovations in health care to countering extremism and challenges faced by military policymakers. It also tells the story of a mission-driven research organization, focused on impact, with an unparalleled breadth of expertise and a noble goal: to make individuals, families, and communities throughout the world safer and more secure, healthier and more prosperous. As we embark on this campaign, we look back with pride on what we’ve accomplished and look forward to what more we can do through the power of philanthropy. As always, we thank the clients, grantors, and donors who support our vision, make our work possible, and help us meet tomorrow’s demands today. KAREN ELLIOTT HOUSE | CHAIR, RAND BOARD OF TRUSTEES MICHAEL D. RICH | PRESIDENT AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER CONTENTS 5 Research and Analysis 58 Pardee RAND Graduate School 64 Philanthropy in Action 80 Congressional Outreach 82 Leadership 88 Clients 92 By the Numbers RESEARCH AND ANALYSIS Each year, clients and grantors around the world turn to RAND for empirical, nonpartisan, and objective research and analysis, bringing us their most vexing and complex public policy challenges. RAND researchers pursue innovative solutions across a wide range of policy areas, including Children, Families, and Communities Cyber and Data Sciences Education and Literacy Energy and Environment Health, Health Care, and Aging Homeland Security and Public Safety Infrastructure and Transportation International Affairs Law and Business National Security and Terrorism Science and Technology Workers and the Workplace On the following pages, we share research highlights from 2019. These projects demonstrate an approach to problem-solving that is founded on rigor and dedicated to advancing the public good. RAND CORPORATION ANNUAL REPORT 2019 5 CHILDREN, FAMILIES, AND COMMUNITIES CHILD AND FAMILY POLICY IN THE EU The European Union has committed to improving days of paid paternity leave for new fathers. A few the lives of children and families across its countries have also taken steps to provide financial 27 member states. Researchers at RAND Europe support to large families. have been tracking policy changes and public The EU held a children’s summit in early 2019 outcomes to gauge its progress. as part of its twice-annual Presidency Summit. It Their reports, sponsored by the European pledged to ensure that children can participate in Commission, have helped guide policy public decisions that affect their lives. discussions by spotlighting developments in But the researchers also found areas that need member states as well as the EU as a whole. improvement. The EU has declared that all children For example, European states have increasingly have a right to protection from poverty. Yet the most recognized the importance of early childhood recent numbers suggest that one-quarter of the education and care, and the lifelong impact it can children in the EU are at risk of poverty or social have. A number of them have started to provide exclusion. That’s especially true for migrant children. subsidies for high-quality programs, researchers Work continues on a Child Guarantee Scheme for reported. Vulnerable Children. When completed, it will provide The EU has also sought to ensure a better work- a framework for policies, legislation, and programs life balance for parents and other caregivers. to provide essential services for children across In keeping with that, the European Parliament the EU. The European Parliament has made it approved two months of nontransferable paid a political priority. parental leave for each new parent, and ten Learn more at www.rand.org/t/EP67946 “IT IS CRUCIAL THAT WE NOT JUST IDENTIFY THESE INITIATIVES, BUT ASSESS THEIR IMPACT. IT IS ONLY THROUGH THE COLLECTION OF ROBUST EVALUATION EVIDENCE THAT WE CAN INFORM AND SHAPE FUTURE POLICY DECISIONS.” BARBARA JANTA senior analyst RAND CORPORATION ANNUAL REPORT 2019 7 CHILDREN, FAMILIES, AND COMMUNITIES ENHANCING EQUITY The City of Pittsburgh has been taking a hard look somewhat less likely than their male peers to enroll at race, wealth, and opportunity, in partnership in science, technology, engineering, and math– with researchers at RAND’s office there. The based career and technical education programs. results show what disparity looks like in one The Pittsburgh Equity Indicators show that it’s American city, and provide a case study for how possible to track disparities across many fields in other cities might hold up a mirror to their own a way that is transparent and can help guide good promises of equity. policy. The city government has plans to release Researchers working with financial and strategic millions of dollars for affordable housing and support from the City University of New York quality child care, guided in part by the indicators. Institute for State and Local Governance helped It also has taken steps to require bias training for the city develop a series of indicators that it could all police officers, and announced the creation track year to year. The indicators showed that of a dedicated Office of Equity. black residents were nine times more likely to be Learn more at www.rand.org/t/EP67846 homeless, and five times less likely to own their own businesses. Homicide rates improved across the city, but black residents were still nine times more likely to die a “THERE ARE CONVERSATIONS ABOUT INEQUITY violent death. HAPPENING ALL OVER THE COUNTRY. BUT The indicators focused mostly HOW DO YOU MEASURE INEQUITY? on disparities by race, but BEFORE THIS WORK, THERE HADN’T not always. They showed, for example, that residents of low- REALLY BEEN SUCH A SYSTEMATIC income neighborhoods had LOOK AT EQUITY, IN PITTSBURGH much higher rates of diabetes OR MANY OTHER CITIES—NOT than residents of high-income SOMETHING THAT TAKES IT ALL neighborhoods. Female public high-school students were TOGETHER AND TRIES TO SEE THE WHOLE PICTURE.” LINNEA WARREN MAY senior policy analyst 8 TOMORROW DEMANDS TODAY CYBER AND DATA SCIENCES Funding for this research was provided by gifts from RAND supporters and income from operations. ALGORITHMIC EQUITY Algorithms are quietly everywhere. They influence solve complicated problems. In doing so, they might car insurance rates, decide who should get called also replicate and exacerbate historical or structural in for a job interview, and help courts calculate unfairness. Complicating the problem: Standards of criminal sentences. So the question of what fairness change depending on the context. makes an algorithm fair has real societal weight. People expect equal treatment in the courts, for But that’s a deceptively difficult question, example—but not in car insurance policies, where researchers say. Algorithms are just pieces of certain group characteristics help determine risks computer code that can spot patterns and help and rates. Answering whether a given algorithm is fair requires first answering under what circumstances, for whom, and by what standard. That expanded discussion is urgently needed, the “THIS SUBJECT IS VITALLY researchers concluded. Algorithms have shown IMPORTANT RIGHT NOW. that they can infer sensitive personal characteristics UNADDRESSED INEQUITIES from un-sensitive data—guessing a person’s race from his or her address, for example. The industry CAN UNDERMINE THE needs frameworks, not a framework, to recognize STABILITY AND LEGITIMACY and address equity challenges like those that OF SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS, come from greater use of algorithms. AND LEAD TO SEVERE That should start with greater transparency whenever ADVERSE IMPACTS an algorithm is at play in a decision that affects people’s lives.
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