Research & Innovation

The Pardee RAND Graduate School is unique in offering a doctoral program in policy analysis within an applied policy research setting and focus on innovative analytic methods. RAND provides an environment ideally suited to educating graduate students in policy analysis, offering a range of research opportunities in policy analysis that is unmatched by any other institution. Through our required research fellowships, the Pardee RAND curriculum enables students to participate in current RAND research projects in a range of policy and analytic areas.

Analytic Methods Centers

Drawing on the expertise of more than 1,000 world-class researchers, faculty, and students, the Methods Centers at Pardee RAND organize our diverse base of expertise around a set of interlocking and leading-edge analytic domains to create the next generation of research methods and tools.

Policy Research Areas

As part of RAND Corporation, students have the opportunity — and in fact are required — to conduct policy research as part of RAND research teams. Our policy research areas include health, education, and wellbeing; defense and security; global issues; and much more.

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    Education

    Education policy is a medium size area of work for Pardee RAND students. RAND's work in this area has covered almost every aspect of the education system for more than four decades. Work ranges on everything from early childhood education to postsecondary education, educator effectiveness, instructional technology, to accountability and assessments.

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    Energy, Environment & Infrastructure

    Students interested in energy, infrastructure, and the environment contribute in a variety of ways to RAND research both within the U.S. and around the globe. Student work in this area has supported research on water, transportation, and energy policy, valuation of ecosystem services, and community resilience.

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    Global Development

    Through efforts like the Pardee Initiative, Pardee RAND students and RAND researchers conduct extensive work and write about global human development efforts in more than 75 countries around the world.

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    Health & Health Care

    Pardee RAND students contribute to RAND’s portfolio of research on health and health care in the U.S. and around the globe. Students have contributed to numerous projects on such topics as the effects of health care reform, military and veteran health, and mental health and addiction, among many others.

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    Justice & Drug Policy

    Justice and drug policy is a broad and longstanding area of research within RAND. Student work in justice policy has ranged from work on the impacts of marijuana legalization, to analysis of the ways that emerging technologies may impact policing and public safety — among many other topics.

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    Labor, Population & Aging

    The labor, population, and aging policy area aims to provide solutions to critical social and economic problems faced by children and families, workers, the elderly, the disabled, and other vulnerable populations. RAND’s work in this area has aimed to understand why people make the decisions they do and how markets, society, and policy affect them.

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    Science, Technology & Innovation

    Science, technology and innovation policy is a small but diverse area of ongoing work for students at Pardee RAND. Students frequently make substantive contributions to this field of research at RAND, either through probject-based research training or via dissertation research.

  • U.S. Air Force captain shakes hands with an Afghanistan National Army warehouse supervisor as they discuss storage and distribution for equipment and supplies in Kabul, Afghanistan, January 26, 2017

    Security & Defense

    The RAND Corporation helped create the field of defense analysis after World War II. Modern researchers at RAND, including Pardee RAND students, carry on this tradition. Common topic areas include strategy and policy, technology and acquisition, logistics, and personnel.

Featured Initiatives

  • Pardee Initiative Offers Bold Ideas for Global Human Progress

    Launched in December 2013 with a generous grant from Frederick S. Pardee, the Pardee Initiative for Global Human Progress is a new approach to chronic problems faced by the developing world, most notably food insecurity and challenges of urbanization.

  • Cazier Initiative for Energy and Environmental Sustainability

    The Cazier Environmental and Energy Sustainability Initiative is turbocharging research in environmental and energy sustainability at Pardee RAND to generate new concepts, tools, and methods to improve public policy and the commercial sector.

  • Student-Led Initiatives

    Pardee RAND encourages students to extend their policy analysis training outside of the classroom, through the International Development Speaker Series, the L.A. Policy Symposium, and other student-led initiatives.

  • James Q. Wilson Collection: A Research Archive

    The James Q. Wilson Collection includes nearly 1,400 books from his personal collection and an archival collection of approximately 20 linear feet of papers that RAND Knowledge Services has cataloged for the benefit of the research community. A finding aid is available to help researchers explore the collection.