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Frederick S. Pardee
Institute for International Futures
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Research

Pardee research helps people examine how today’s choices may shape development, geopolitical relationships, and global systems over time.
Our work is organized around three connected questions: how development systems change, how international relationships shift, and how integrated models can make those changes easier to examine. 

Use this page to explore our research areas, browse common issue areas, and find recent publications, tools, and analysis
Our research addresses questions involving policy trade-offs, development pathways, resource constraints, institutional capacity, risk, and uncertainty.

Our areas of study

Pardee’s research is organized around three connected areas of study. Together, they explain how we build the tools behind long-term analysis, apply them to development questions, and study changes in power, influence, and international relationships.

 

IFs methodology & development

This work strengthens the research foundation behind Pardee’s long-term analysis. Grounded in systems-based science and anchored by International Futures, this team advances interdisciplinary scholarship on how human, social, economic, environmental, and geopolitical systems interact over time.  This work helps maintain the rigor and credibility of IFs while expanding how scenario-based modeling can support research, teaching, and decision-making.

Explore how IFs works

 

Development analysis

Pardee’s development analysis uses IFs to examine how policies, resources, and structural trends may shape human development over time. Through scenario-based analysis, we study pathways across sectors such as education, health, poverty, infrastructure, climate, and governance, helping partners compare tradeoffs and plan under uncertainty. These development pathways also affect how countries relate to one another and how influence changes over time.

See what shapes human development 

 

Geopolitical analysis

Many consequential changes in international affairs are difficult to see clearly in the moment. Diplomatic behavior, influence, leader engagement, voting patterns, and state relationships often escape notice unless they appear in a summit, crisis, or headline. Through data-building, tool-building, and analysis, Pardee makes some of those harder-to-see dynamics more legible for researchers, policymakers, journalists, and practitioners.

Study power and influence

Issue areas explored

Many Pardee projects span more than one research area. A question about poverty may also involve education, health, governance, climate, or conflict. A question about power may depend on development capacity, diplomatic networks, and institutional behavior. These issue areas offer another entry point to Pardee’s work, especially when a question spans methods, sectors, or regions.

Below are some of the topics our research most often examines.

Explore all issue areas

Help support a global community working toward a more knowable future

Pardee’s open tools, research, and training resources support students, researchers, policymakers, and practitioners around the world. Your gift helps keep that work accessible and strengthens the public research infrastructure behind it.

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Follow Pardee research, publications, events, and tools that help people reason more clearly about possible futures.

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