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The RAND Corporation is a Nonprofit global policy Think Tank first formed to offer research and analysis to the United States Armed Forces . The organization has since expanded to working with other Government s, private foundations, international organizations, and Commercial organizations. It is known for rigorous, often-quantitative, and non-partisan analysis and policy recommendations.[http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/iop/students_internships_db.php?action=id&id=551 Guide for Political Internships] from Harvard University; URL accessed March 19, 2007 [http://www.safetyandjustice.org/node/631/print Oregon: The Rand Report on Measure 11 is Finally Available] by Brigette Sarabi, 2005; URL accessed URL accessed March 19, 2007 Public Health Preparedness in the 21st Century , testimony by Nicole Lurie before the U.S. Senate, 2006; URL accessed March 19, 2007

RAND has approximately 1,600 employees and four principal locations: Santa Monica, California (headquarters); Washington, D.C. (currently located in Arlington, Virginia ); Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (adjacent to Carnegie Mellon University and the University Of Pittsburgh ); and Cambridge, United Kingdom (RAND Europe). RAND has several smaller offices in the United States as well, including the RAND Gulf States Policy Institute in Jackson, Mississippi . In 2003, it opened the RAND-Qatar Policy Institute in Doha .

RAND is also the home to the Frederick S. Pardee RAND Graduate School , one of the original graduate programs in Public Policy and the first to offer a Ph.D. The program is unique in that students work alongside RAND analysts on real-world problems. The campus is at RAND's Santa Monica research facility. The Pardee RAND School is the world's largest Ph.D.-granting program in policy analysis.

According to RAND's own account of its history, the Corporation 's Acronym ic name is a Contraction of the phrase " Research And Development ." {Link without Title}


PROJECT RAND

RAND was set up in 1946 by the United States Army Air Forces as Project RAND, under contract to the Douglas Aircraft Company , and in May 1946 they released the '' Preliminary Design Of An Experimental World-Circling Spaceship ''. In May 1948, Project RAND was separated from Douglas and became an independent Non-profit Organization . Initial capital for the split came from the Ford Foundation .


MISSION STATEMENT

RAND was incorporated as a non-profit organization to "further promote Scientific , Education al, and Charitable purposes, all for the public welfare and security of the United States of America." Its self-declared mission is "to help improve policy and decision making through research and analysis", using its "core values of quality and objectivity."


ACHIEVEMENTS AND EXPERTISE

The achievements of RAND stem from its development of Systems Analysis . Important contributions are claimed in space systems and the United States' Space Program , in computing and in Artificial Intelligence . RAND researchers developed many of the principles that were used to build the Internet . Numerous analytical techniques were invented at RAND, including Dynamic Programming , Game Theory , the Delphi Method , Linear Programming , Systems Analysis , and Exploratory Modeling . RAND also pioneered the development and use of Wargaming .

Current areas of expertise include: child policy, Civil and Criminal Justice , education, environment and energy, health, international policy, Labor Market s, national security, infrastructure, energy, environment, corporate governance, economic development, intelligence policy, long-range planning, crisis management and disaster preparation, population and Regional Studies , science and technology, Social Welfare , terrorism, arts policy, and transportation.

RAND designed and conducted one of the largest and most important studies of health insurance between 1974 and 1982. The RAND Health Insurance Experiment , funded by the then-U.S. Department Of Health, Education And Welfare , established an insurance corporation to compare demand for health services with their cost to the patient.

According to the 2005 annual report, "about one-half of RAND's research involves national security issues."

The RAND Corporation posts all of its unclassified reports, in full, on its website www.rand.org .


NOTABLE RAND PARTICIPANTS



Governance

The organization's governance structure includes a , Lovida Coleman , Timothy Geithner , Rita Hauser , Karen House , Jen-Hsun Huang , Paul Kaminski , Lydia H. Kennard , Ann Korologos , Philip Lader , Bonnie McElveen-Hunter , Ronald Olson , Paul O'Neill , Michael Powell , Donald Rice , James Rohr , James Rothenberg , Ratan Tata , James Thomson , and Marta Tienda .

Former members of the board include: Walter Mondale , Condoleezza Rice , Newton Minow , Brent Scowcroft , Amy Pascal , John Reed, Charles Townes , Caryl Haskins , Walter Wriston , Frank Stanton , Carl Bildt , Donald Rumsfeld , Harold Brown , Robert Curvin , Pedro Greer , Arthur Levitt , Lloyd Morrisett , and Jerry Speyer .


CRITICISMS OF RAND

The RAND Corporation has been associated with Militarism and the Military-industrial Complex .

Many of the events in which RAND plays a part are based on assumptions which are hard to verify because of the lack of detail on RAND's highly classified work for defense and intelligence agencies. Some RAND participants who have gone on to large roles in the military-industrial complex are often believed to have had a role in shaping RAND research. See .

Game Theory was studied and promoted by the RAND Corporation as a way to model human behavior and influence government policy. As noted in ''The Trap'' , when RAND's analysts tried the games on their own secretaries, they disobeyed the ground rules that they should behave selfishly and try to outwit their opponents, choosing to co-operate every time. This did not, in the eyes of the analysts, discredit the theory, but instead proved that the secretaries were unfit subjects.

Due to the nature of its work, the RAND corporation also frequently plays a role in Conspiracy Theories .


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