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Policy Research Areas

Many students arrive at Pardee RAND interested in a specific area of policy research, while others choose the School because of the myriad topics available to them, and the many faculty and experts with whom they can work.

You can visit the RAND website to browse by policy focus.

Within Pardee RAND, students and faculty tend to have more specific research interests that overlap and intersect with RAND's. Click on the topics below to learn about courses, faculty, research, and students in each.

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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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. Many of the RAND researchers working in this area are applied microeconomists and have focused on topics such as improving financial decisionmaking, promoting international development, understanding migration and demographic change, and collecting high quality data using innovative methods and approaches such as the American Life Panel. Students have consistently worked on research collaborations in this area and completed strong dissertations.
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.
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.