RAND Corporation

The RAND Corporation, doing business as RAND, is an American nonprofit global policy think tank, research institute, and public sector consulting firm. RAND engages in research and development (R&D) in several fields and industries. Since the 1950s, RAND research has helped inform United States policy decisions on a wide variety of issues, including the Cold War space race, the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, the U.S.–Soviet nuclear arms confrontation, the creation of the Great Society social welfare programs, and national health care.

RAND originated as "Project RAND" (from the phrase "research and development") in the post-war period immediately after World War II. The U.S. Army Air Forces established Project RAND with the objective of investigating long-range planning of future weapons. The Douglas Aircraft Company was granted a contract to research intercontinental warfare. Project RAND later evolved into RAND, and expanded its research into civilian fields such as education and international affairs. It was the first think tank to be regularly referred to as a "think tank".

RAND receives both public and private funding. Its funding sources include the U.S. government, private endowments, corporations, universities, charitable foundations, U.S. state and local governments, international organizations, and to a small extent, foreign governments. In the 2024 fiscal year, the think tank's revenues and other support were $514 million, of which $328 million was provided by the U.S. federal government.

RAND has approximately 1,850 employees. Its American locations include: Santa Monica, California (headquarters); Arlington, Virginia; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; and Boston, Massachusetts. The RAND Gulf States Policy Institute has an office in New Orleans, Louisiana. RAND Europe is located in Cambridge, United Kingdom; Brussels, Belgium; and The Hague, Netherlands. RAND Australia is located in Canberra, Australia.

RAND is home to the RAND School of Public Policy, one of eight original graduate programs in public policy and the first to offer a Ph.D. The RAND School offers a selective Ph.D. program that aims to provide an analytically rigorous and applied curriculum through coursework and collaboration with RAND researchers to address real-world problems. The campus is at RAND's Santa Monica research facility and is the world's largest institution specializing in graduate-level education in policy analysis.

All Ph.D. students receive fellowships to cover their education costs. This allows them to dedicate their time to engage in research projects and provides them with on-the-job training. RAND also offers a number of internship and fellowship programs allowing students and others to assist in conducting research for RAND projects.

RAND publishes the RAND Journal of Economics, a peer-reviewed journal of economic sciences. Thirty-two recipients of the Nobel Prize, primarily in the fields of economics and physics, have been associated with RAND at some point in their career.

RAND was created after individuals in the War Department, the Office of Scientific Research and Development, and industry began to discuss the need for a private organization to connect operational research with research and development decisions. The immediate impetus for the creation of RAND was a conversation in September 1945 between General Henry H. "Hap" Arnold and Douglas executive Franklin R. Collbohm. Both men were deeply worried that ongoing demobilization meant the federal government was about to lose direct control of the vast amount of American scientific brainpower assembled to fight World War II.