Governments

The Pardee Institute partners with governments across the globe in research and trainings that furthers future thinking and global modeling to improve human well-being.

• US Government

  We have worked extensively with various groups in the US government to build data and conduct analysis of geopolitics through our Diplometrics program.  This program—currently run by Associate Director of Geopolitical Analysis Collin Meisel—has developed data measuring membership in international organizations, embassies, treaties, weaponized interdependence, international non-governmental organizations as well as heads of state travel.  The analytic efforts have focused on the changing structure of the international system and rise of China.  This work has been featured extensively in internal policy products for the US government as well as academic publications.

• U.S. Department of Defense
  

  In 2014, the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) awarded a three-year grant to our Institute and a team of Korbel faculty as part of its Minerva Research Initiative. Researchers on this multi-faceted project analyzed previous attempts to predict the onset of state failure, evaluate the drivers of state fragility, build tools and data associated with the drivers of domestic conflict, and use IFs to forecast the probability of future state failure. In parallel with the development of a series of quantitative models that might be used to forecast state failure, our researchers produced 50 qualitative case studies that summarized key circumstances leading to past state failure events around the world. This grant also covered research on modeling dyadic conflict. In addition, this grant supported the continued development of the Major Episodes of Contention (MEC) database led by Korbel Professor Erica Chenoweth.

• USAID
  

  Our Institute's relationship with the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) continues to expand. We have used IFs to inform the organization’s five-year Development Cooperation Strategies at both the regional and country level. In partnership with our colleagues at the Institute for Security Studies (ISS) in South Africa, we have produced trend and scenario analysis reports for USAID missions like those in Ethiopia and the Southern Africa region. Pardee Institute researchers have held IFs trainings with USAID mission in Jakarta, Indonesia and elsewhere. We also completed a report on development trends in Uganda in 2015, which directly influenced the country mission's five-year strategy for budgeting, planning, and resource allocation, and led to further ongoing analysis of key development indicators at the subnational level. In 2021, a Pardee Institute team with support from the National Opinion Research Center (NORC), developed a report that investigates the long-term impacts of COVID-19 on food security to the year 2040 at world and world-region levels. The report quantifies the multi-dimensional nature of food security by assessing the effect of COVID-19 on extreme poverty, undernourishment, and child stunting out to 2040, and by assessing the effects on underlying drivers of food availability, economic access, and food utilization. The project also explored the impacts of climate and conflict on food security.

• U.S. National Intelligence Council (NIC)
  

  Pardee Institute personnel have contributed forecasting expertise to four U.S. National Intelligence Council’s quadrennial Global Trends reports. These are forward-looking documents prepared for delivery to the incoming or re-elected President and designed to aid policy makers by highlighting alternative futures for key geopolitical issues.

• Irish Aid
  

  Following a presentation of our development trends report for USAID in Southern Africa, Irish Aid asked our team, along with our partners at the Institute for Security Studies (ISS), to expand our trend and scenario analysis in Mozambique. Together, we launched "Prospects and Challenges: Mozambique’s Growth and Human Development Outlook to 2040" in Maputo. The report included an adjusted IFs Base Case, or Current Path, scenario to better understand how advances in the country’s natural gas production might affect Mozambique’s development prospects.

• CEPLAN
  

  Our team worked with Peru’s National Center for Strategic Planning (CEPLAN) to embed International Futures (IFs) into the country’s long-term visioning efforts. CEPLAN used the tool while developing the country's Bicentenary Plan, which included an outlook to 2021, the 200th anniversary of Peruvian independence. The organization also plans to use IFs for trend forecasting in Peru through to 2030 and 2050. To support these efforts, our team conducted a series of local IFs trainings with dedicated in-country specialists.

• Thai Ministry of Public Health
  

  In 2015, our team, along with Dr. Randall Kuhn, led a training on IFs for the Thai Ministry of Public Health as part of a World Health Organization sponsored program. The training focused on understanding health trends in Thailand, forecasting mortality and morbidity across different disease types, and exploring potential policy interventions that could impact health outcomes.

• U.S. Army Future Studies
  

  Our partnership with the U.S. Army Future Studies Group (previously the Chief of Staff of the Army's Strategic Studies Group) explored the future operational environment for the US Army using new structured datasets and our existing modeling tools, including the IFs model. Our database creation efforts focused on measuring military hardware to construct indices of hard capabilities, military capital stocks, and bilateral "reach."

• Western Cape Provincial Government
  

  Our Institute worked with the Western Cape Provincial Government in South Africa to expand the country's provincial model in IFs. Our collaboration was part of the province's effort to represent the history and future of development within the Western Cape. We produced provincial level policy analyses and conducted a series of IFs trainings for provincial government officials.