The now-defunct National Center for Policy Analysis helped launch efforts in the United States for health savings accounts and Roth IRAs. These think tanks can have real-world impact, too: Margaret Thatcher is said to have relied on the Adam Smith Institute and the Institute of Economic Affairs when she set out to privatize large swaths of the British economy. As The Economist puts it, “think tanks aim to fill the gap between academia and policymaking.” Instead of pushing a position regardless of the facts, think tanks typically stand back from the fray and offer insights that might contribute to a discussion of interest to governments or businesses. Think tanks are usually goal oriented around a shared focus. They are places where scholars produce rigorous and in-depth research. Think tanks are designed to provide expertise for policymaking and decision-making. The project continues today as the RAND Corporation, a nonprofit organization that works on military and civilian issues. RAND was short for Research and Development. It was aimed at continuing to foster the creative efforts of engineers and scientists who came up with military breakthroughs such as radar and the proximity fuse. At the time, a handful of American groups were already working in the think tank model, such as the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Brookings Institution.īut the first group to emerge in the modern think tank mold was Project RAND (PDF, 1.5 MB) in 1945. The term “think tank” was coined during World War II to describe a safe place where wartime plans and strategies could be discussed. The think tank is a relatively recent creation. Others have a scientific focus, such as the Federation of American Scientists and the Union of Concerned Scientists. The think tank world is large, with more than 7,500 think tanks (PDF, 149 KB) around the globe. Some think tanks have political bents (e.g., the conservative The Heritage Foundation or the liberal Human Rights Watch). A think tank is a group or organization that researches and often advocates on a broad topic like economics, the military, technology, social issues, or culture.
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