Pardee About

The first part of our mission statement focuses on what we do, specifically, what makes our approach rigorous and unmatched.

Our tools 

We are an interdisciplinary research institute that is housed within academia. We host International Futures (IFs), the only open-source integrated assessment platform and forecasting tool that uses a hybrid approach of systems dynamics, econometrics, and other quantitative techniques and leverages over 5,000 historical series to analyze and forecast hundreds of interconnected, macro-level variables across human, social, and natural systems for 188 countries in one-year time steps from 1960 through the end of this century and beyond.  

IFs forecasts across 11 dynamically connected submodules, including agriculture, demographics, economics, education, energy, environment, governance, health, human development, infrastructure, and international relations. By integrating these systems, IFs can simulate how changes in one system may lead to changes across all systems.  

We believe that the true value of models lies not in predicting outcomes, but in shaping how we think about and understand the future. Long-term integrated models equip us to identify and analyze the fundamental forces that drive change over the coming decades. At the same time, they offer a structured approach to navigating uncertainty, enabling scenario-based analysis that informs smarter policy decisions and more resilient planning.  

By including historical data series from 1960 onwards, we can examine past trends to anchor our understanding of our current trajectory, how human, social, and environmental systems interact over time, and how we think about and address the “grand challenges” awaiting the global community. This is core to our approach to building knowledge about the future. 

We also seek to better understand and measure bilateral and multilateral state relationships by gathering data, building analytical tools, and conducting analysis. This area of our research identifies international interactions that measure the depth and breadth of political, diplomatic, economic, security, and cultural ties between countries. Parts of this workstream integrate IFs while others stand alone as entirely separate datasets and tools.  

Our approach 

Our research approach is grounded in empirical evidence and designed to study the structural drivers of change and durability, particularly in the context of development, climate change, and international relations. We are committed to transparency because we believe in democratizing access to knowledge about the long-term future, making it available to everyone and not hidden behind paywalls and other barriers to understanding. We recognize that the complexity of our model presents practical barriers to entry, and this plan aims to address some of them.  

In addition to access, transparency facilitates a core academic rigor tenet: reproducibility. This openness enables broader scrutiny, collaboration, and application across both scientific and policy communities, reinforcing the credibility and utility of our work. 

We build scenarios grounded in an understanding of the interconnectedness among the relationships represented in our model. This sets us apart from others in the field: IFs forecasts are integrated across various issues, rather than focusing on them individually. Additionally, we can broaden or narrow our long-term forecasts to encompass global, regional, and country levels.  

We have three interconnected research workstreams: development analysis, geopolitical analysis, and model development. With development analysis, we model scenarios across a range of domains, including the intersections of national power and influence. Likewise, geopolitics is heavily influenced by interconnected systems upon which we build our scenarios. Our work enhancing the model, which involves model and systems development, is the engine that powers these research activities.  

Often, our findings are grounded in policy trade-offs. We develop policy strategies that are guided by curiosity (a core value) about experiences and impacts and shaped by the needs and perspectives of those we serve and their constituencies.