RAND Corporation

In 1946 the U.S. Army Air Forces set up Project RAND under contract with the Douglas Aircraft Company to retain the civilian scientific talent that had helped win World War II. Its first assignment was a design study for a “world-circling spaceship,” with a three-week deadline; the first report, Preliminary Design of an Experimental World-Circling Spaceship, appeared in May 1946 and ran to more than 200 pages, and RAND describes it as the most thorough engineering study of a satellite at the time.⁠[1][2]

On May 14, 1948, RAND separated from the Douglas Aircraft Company and became an independent nonprofit organization. That year it built the JOHNNIAC, named for John von Neumann and among the first mainframe computers with stored memory. The mathematician J. D. Williams was one of RAND’s most important early leaders.⁠[2][1]

RAND began its Soviet studies in 1950 with The Operational Code of the Politburo and in 1952 produced the first program-based budget for the U.S. Air Force. RAND states that its team’s 1954 work on air base selection shifted U.S.United StatesThe United States is a federal country in North America made up of 50 states, the District of Columbia as the seat of government, and territories such as Puerto Rico and Guam; its capital is Washington, D.C. The Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. The 2020 census (April 1, 2020) counted a resident population of 331,449,281, and the 435 seats of the House of Representatives are apportioned among the states on the basis of the census.Open the full entry nuclear posture from first-strike to second-strike capability. In 1955 it published A Million Random Digits with 100,000 Normal Deviates; in 1957 its researchers used Information Processing Languages, precursors to LISP, to develop what RAND calls the first successful artificial intelligence program; and in 1958 RAND researchers designed components of CORONA, the first successful U.S. satellite imagery reconnaissance system.⁠[2]

In 1961 RAND introduced the RAND Tablet, an early device for entering handwriting and drawings into a computer. In 1962 it proposed a communications network resistant to nuclear attack, based on distributed communications, or packet switching, drawing on Paul Baran’s work; the idea became one of the foundations of the internet. RAND states that its 1964 research led to the NATONATONATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, is an alliance founded on the North Atlantic Treaty signed in 1949, with collective defence as its core principle. Its political and administrative centre is in Brussels, Belgium.Open the full entry Defense Planning Working Group, the first NATO contingency studies and the Flexible Response strategy. In 1969 RAND and New York City formed the New York City–RAND Institute.⁠[2][1]

Daniel EllsbergDaniel EllsbergDaniel Ellsberg (1931–2023) was an American military analyst and economist who worked at the RAND Corporation and took part in the Defense Department’s top-secret history of decision-making in Vietnam. In 1971 he gave the study, later known as the Pentagon Papers, to the press; the charges brought against him were dismissed in 1973, and he spent the following decades as a peace and anti-nuclear activist.Open the full entry worked at RAND from 1958 to 1970. In 1967 he joined a team assembled by Defense Secretary Robert McNamaraRobert McNamaraRobert McNamara (Robert Strange McNamara, 1916–2009) was an American business executive and government official who was president of the Ford Motor Company, served as U.S. secretary of defense under John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson from 1961 to 1968, and was president of the World Bank from 1968 to 1981.Open the full entry to examine why the United States had not succeeded in Vietnam and what lessons could be drawn. In 1969 Ellsberg took a copy of the classified study, United States-Vietnam Relations, 1945–1967, out of RAND; he left RAND in 1970 and in 1971 leaked the study to The New York TimesThe New York TimesThe New York Times is an American morning daily newspaper published in New York City. Founded in 1851, it is published by The New York Times Company.Open the full entry, after which it became known as the Pentagon Papers.⁠[3]

The RAND Graduate Institute, known today as the RAND School of Public Policy, opened in 1970; RAND describes it as the largest public policy Ph.D. program in the United States. In 1971 RAND set up a manpower research center whose studies supported the U.S. military’s 1973 transition to an all-volunteer force.⁠[2][1]

After the 1972 Munich and Lydda attacks, RAND led a terrorism research network and created the RAND Terrorism Chronology database. Committee work led by Willis Ware on computer record-keeping helped lay the foundation for the Privacy Act of 1974. The RAND Health Insurance Experiment, the largest health policy study in the United States, began in 1976 and enrolled 2,750 families; from 1978 a five-year effort with the Dutch government produced a storm-surge barrier with large movable gates.⁠[2][1]

In the 1980s RAND worked with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on ozone-layer research, and its 1987 economic analysis supported the global ban on ozone-depleting chemicals; Project ALERT, a teen drug and smoking prevention program, was developed at RAND in 1988; and in 1989 RAND began the Medical Outcomes Study and developed the 36-Item Health Survey.⁠[2][1]

James A. Thomson led RAND from 1989 and announced in April 2011 that he would step down. On October 4, 2011, RAND named Michael D. Rich its fifth president and chief executive officer, effective November 1 that year; at the time RAND had about 1,700 associates, 11 offices and an annual budget of about $250 million.⁠[4]

RAND Europe was established at Delft University of Technology in 1992; it now has about 150 staff, with offices in Cambridge, United Kingdom, and Brussels.⁠[2]

In 2010 RAND updated its 1993 study of gay and lesbian service members, informing the working group on repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” and in 2016 it found that the costs of integrating transgender troops would be “overwhelmingly small.” In 2018 RAND launched its Truth Decay research effort.⁠[2][1]

On June 7, 2022, RAND named Jason Matheny its sixth president and chief executive officer, succeeding Rich, who had led RAND since 2011; Matheny took office on July 5, 2022. He had led White House technology and national security policy at the National Security Council and the Office of Science and Technology Policy, was founding director of the Center for Security and Emerging Technology at Georgetown University, and had directed the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA).⁠[5]

As of November 2026, RAND’s website lists Jason Matheny as President and Chief Executive Officer, Jim Mitre as Senior Vice President and Chief Research Officer, and Eric Peltz as Senior Vice President and Chief Financial and Operations Officer; Michael E. Leiter chairs the Board of Trustees, with David L. Porges as vice chair. RAND has offices across the United States, in Europe and in Australia.⁠[6][1]

RAND Corporation: Official website: https://www.rand.org/ (opens in a new window).⁠[1]

X: Public account: https://x.com/RANDCorporation (opens in a new window).⁠[1]

LinkedInLinkedInLinkedIn is a social networking platform for professionals. It was founded in 2002 by Reid Hoffman and others, launched in 2003, and listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2011; after Microsoft acquired it for approximately $26.2 billion in 2016, it became a wholly owned Microsoft subsidiary. Its revenue comes from membership subscriptions, advertising, and recruitment solutions.Open the full entry: Public profile: https://www.linkedin.com/company/rand-corporation (opens in a new window).⁠[1]

YouTubeYouTubeYouTube is Google’s video-sharing and creator platform, founded in 2005 by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim and acquired by Google in 2006. Built around video uploading, viewing, and creator earnings, the platform has developed Shorts, YouTube Music, Premium, YouTube TV, and products for children, and is headquartered in San Bruno, California, United States.Open the full entry: Public channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/TheRANDCorporation (opens in a new window).⁠[1]