Major Think Tanks

Open Society Foundations – Progressive   The Open Society Foundations, founded by George Soros, are the world’s largest private funder of independent groups working for justice, democratic governance, and human rights. We provide thousands of grants every year through a network of national and regional foundations and offices, funding a vast array of projects—many of them now shaped by the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic.     Read More

Top 100 Think Tanks – United States In rank order Brookings Center for Strategic and International Studies Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Heritage Foundation Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE) Urban Institute Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars Center for American Progress (CAP) Atlantic Council RAND Corporation Hudson Institute Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs Cato Institute Center for New American Security (CNAS) American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research (AEI) — United States James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy Stimson Center Human Rights Watch Resources for the Future (RFF) Freedom House German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF) Hoover Institution World Resources Institute (WRI) McKinsey Global Institute National Bureau of Economic Research Inter-American Dialogue Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) Center for Global Development (CGD) Chicago Council on Global Affairs United States Institute of Peace (USIP) Acton Institute for Study of Religion and Liberty Pew Research Center Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) Manhattan Institute for Policy Research (MI) Economic Policy Institute (EPI) National Bureau of Asian Research (NBR) Worldwatch Institute Mercatus Center Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs Migration Policy Institute (MPI) Independent Institute Center for Climate and Energy Solutions (C2ES) Middle East Institute (MEI) Earth Institute Center for the National Interest (CFTNI) Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC) Aspen Institute EastWest Institute (EWI) New America Foundation Center for Transatlantic Relations (CTR) Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI) Atlas Network Foundation for Economic Education (FEE) Reason Foundation Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) Milken Institute International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) Third Way Committee for Economic Development Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA) McCain Institute for International Leadership Hispanic American Center for Economic Research (HACER) Open Society Foundations (OSF) Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR) Arctic Institute R Street Institute Center for International Security and Arms Control (CISAC) Lugar Center Institute for New Economic Thinking Berggruen Institute Demos Congressional Research Service Africa Center for Strategic Studies Project for the Study of the 21st Century (PS21) Institute of Religion and Democracy (IRD) Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) Mackinac Center Center for International Policy Washington Center for Equitable Growth Center for Naval Analyses Institute for Defense Analyses Levy Institute Public Policy Institute of California Goldwater Institute Roosevelt Institute Institute for the Study of War (ISR) Center for Immigration Studies Center for National Policy Pacific Council on International Policy Center for International Development (CID) Pacific Forum Beacon Hill Institute Center for Governmental Research American Foreign Policy Council J Street Federation for American Immigration Reform Penn Library page – website Read More

Academic Influence – website This is a copy of Academic Influence’s website – click website for the actual website Top Influential Think Tanks 2021 Whether you’re aware of it or not, think tanks have influenced your life and worldview by advancing policy measures in government, by shaping the media you consume, and even by inventing language that you use. Our list covers 50 highly influential think tanks in the world today. As active global citizens, it’s important to better understand who these organizations are, and how they’re influencing the world around us.   By Academic Influence Staff Copyright © 2021 Academic­Influence.com | All Rights Reserved Top Ten Most Influential Think Tanks Brookings Institution The Heritage Foundation Council on Foreign Relations Cato Institute Center for Strategic and International Studies American Enterprise Institute RAND Corporation Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Atlantic Council Hoover Institution Often opinionated and even contentious, think tanks are a fixture of modern politics and public policy around the globe. Though focused intellectual groups have played an influential role in governance for centuries (royal courts, elite societies, and business clubs, for example), think tanks are a distinctly 20th century invention. The word itself comes from WWII military jargon, and, after being adopted and redefined over the years, has been retroactively applied to numerous pre-WWII institutions. What is a think tank? Political Biases of Top Think Tanks Conservative Libertarian Centrist Neo-Conservative Liberal Progressive Think tanks are interest groups that pursue research and analysis to advance a set of values or ideas, often through political action and policy change, as well as through cultural and social influence. Some think tanks are truly non-partisan, regularly working with administrations of both main US political parties (we label them “centrist” in the list below), while others self-identify as non-partisan despite evidence to the contrary (we reserve the right to exercise our own judgment about such cases), and still others are explicitly or tacitly conservative, neo-conservative, libertarian, centrist, liberal, progressive, or socialist. Some think tanks focus on domestic policy and some on foreign policy. Some pursue free-market capitalism and limited government, while others argue for increased taxes and social welfare spending. Still others debate revolution or monitor the growth of liberation movements in foreign countries. They wield influence by publishing reports and books, developing research tools, running media campaigns, holding events and conferences, directing lobbying action, and enlisting high-ranking and well-connected members. Some are broadly transparent about their sources of funding and support, while others are quite guarded about this information. Whether you’re aware of it or not, think tanks have influenced your life and worldview. They do this through policy measures they help enact into law, through the media they shape and you consume, and—perhaps most insidiously—through the language they invent and you use. While you might know the names of a few think tanks, many of them are unfamiliar to the general public, and have bland names that do little to enlighten the uninitiated about their goals or focus. This list covers the 50 most-influential think tanks in the world today. If you wish to be an active, well-informed citizen, it’s important to better understand who these organizations are and how they’re influencing the world around you. You may even want to get involved working with—or against—one of them! Methodology Our innovative ranking technology delivers a better way for important individuals and institutions to shine by capturing an essential metric: true influence. By “true influence,” we mean the level of attention and penetration an idea and/or entity achieves worldwide. To do this, we: aggregate scholarly and academic citations; track the attention they receive; and weigh their merits against other information sources such as newspapers, magazines, and global media outlets. Importantly, our machine learning technology doesn’t simply scrape the web for mentions. The artificial intelligence (AI) behind it digs deeply, by identifying entities and institutions, finding mentions of the institution across the web, mapping the people that make up an institution, including independent work done by those people and their affiliations with other institutions, and mapping institutional output by identifying ideas as entities for further tracking. As this mapping develops and signals strengthen between these entities, we collect essential data for comparing the influence of organizations (in this case, think tanks). For added corroboration and results assurance, we employ web traffic analysis from third parties (including SEMrush and Ahrefs) to track the organic search traffic leading to the think tanks’ domains, each domain’s keyword footprint, the number of referring domains, and the authority of those referring domains. In summary, our team of data scientists is confident this combination of web data aggregation, AI-driven data analysis, and independent web search monitoring yields an accurate, reliable measure of a think tank’s global influence.   The Most Influential Think Tanks in the World Today 1 Brookings Institution Washington, DC, USA Visit Website Political bias: Liberal The Brookings Institution (“Brookings”) is the premier think tank in the US, if not the world. It was founded through the merger of three Washington-based, social science and public policy research organizations in 1927. One of these, the Institute for Government Research, had been founded by wholesale distribution and shipping magnate turned philanthropist, Robert S. Brookings (1850–1932) in 1916. Originally occupied mainly with studying the economic impact of tax policy, during the Great Depression Brookings was tasked by the administration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt (1933–1945) with studying the underlying causes of that devastating economic downturn and with recommending remedies. After World War II, Brookings became deeply involved with devising and implementing the Marshall Plan for the reconstruction of Europe. Thus, gradually over the years the institution has expanded its reach to a global scale. While Brookings refers to itself as politically “non-partisan” and “centrist,” more than 90 percent of the political donations made by its scholars and staff members go to Democratic Party candidates. Today, Brookings is heavily involved in economic development efforts around the world, while still maintaining a strong research interest in the US economy and political system. The institution’s roster of more than 300 experts is drawn from all… Read More