The RAND Corporation provides a platform to help clients improve their policy and their ways of decision making. By providing thorough research and analysis, RAND has been helping individuals, families and communities for over 70 years. The research that RAND provides is focused on a variety of topics, including energy, education, health care, justice, the environment, international affairs, and national security. The nonprofit institution bases its research and analysis on facts only in order to create a safe, healthier and more prosperous world.
RAND makes sure the work it produces is transparent and open. With a rigorous and objective process of obtaining research, you can be sure that RAND is free of commercial, partisan, and ideological bias. The research is peer-reviewed by experts who work inside and outside of RAND. This scrutiny is part of what makes RAND a trusted source of expertise and analysis.
Diving Into the Values at RAND
The employees at RAND follow very simple values: Quality and objectivity. From these values, RAND was able to develop specific standards that would produce quality research. These standards serve as a guide for everyone who conducts, manages, supports and evaluates research activities. But in the same breath, the values are the defining principles to which the RAND research units and programs shape their individual quality assurance processes.
These standards came to light after a long discussion about RAND's quality. The discussion took place over a matter of a period of time and took place between employees and leadership within the walls at RAND as well as through email. First being introduced in 1997, the standards have been reviewed and updated several times since then. The research standards are just one of the many testaments that uphold their mission statement: RAND exists to help policymakers make decisions that are based on the best available information. At RAND, the results are fueled by the best data, the strongest methods, and the brightest minds.
The company's vision is to continue to tackle the world's most pressing challenges with the goal of making individuals, families, and communities throughout the world safer and more secure, healthier and more prosperous. In addition, RAND provides an exciting intellectual environment and opportunities for career growth. The employees who work there once started out as highly-qualified applicants who now get to work on challenging assignments every day. In order to provide the best culture, RAND believes that hiring people who come from diverse backgrounds with differing opinions serves as an essential operating principle.
The Internship at RAND Corporation
Calling All (Grad) Students
As part of providing a stimulating environment for current students, RAND offers a couple of different options when it comes to being a RAND intern. With the Graduate Student Summer Associate Program, students are able to conduct short-term independent research within the framework of an ongoing project at RAND. The summer associates are mentored and supported by RAND employees. They work alongside RAND experts to develop solutions for challenges facing public policy. The students gain practical research experience in security, health, education, and sustainability.
And for those students who are working toward achieving Ph.D. status in policy analysis, RAND has some work for you. Through the Pardee RAND Graduate School, students work alongside assistant policy analysts on a variety of research projects. The school's mission is to mentor future leaders specific to the public sector industry. And if these students meet the research fellowship requirements, they'll be able to graduate with little to no debt. It almost sounds too good to be true.
The Fellowship at RAND Corporation
My Precious
RAND provides several opportunities for employees to grow in their career through the variety of fellowships that are offered. From the RAND Military Fellows Program to the Asia Pacific Fellows Program, you're sure to find opportunities that will help you successfully accomplish your career goals.
The Asia Pacific Fellows Program is a one-year residency for mid- to senior-career professionals in the Asia Pacific. The fellows who are accepted receive the opportunity to spend one year as a resident at RAND The fellows work on a pre-approved research project and take courses at the Pardee RAND Graduate School. The company also offers several postdoctoral fellows, including Stanton Nuclear Security Fellows Program, RAND Postdoctoral Training Program in the Study of Aging, RAND-University of Pittsburgh Scholars Program, and the Transatlantic Post-Doc Fellowship for International Relations and Security.
In addition to the long list of fellowships, the company also offers workshops and seminars to continue inspiring and captivating its employees. Every year, RAND colleagues can attend an annual conference called the RAND Summer Institute. The conference addresses critical issues facing the aging population, comprises the Workshop on Aging and the Mini-Medical School for Social Scientists, and serves as a vehicle to provide additional training to researchers new to the field of aging. The Mini-Medical School for Social Science Researchers is an invitational series of lectures about biomedical issues relating to aging. The company believes these lectures are geared for all non-medically trained scholars whose research relates to the aging process and the medical treatment of elderly.
And last, but not least, is the Next Generation Initiative. This initiative includes a special focus on the Faculty Leaders Program in Policy Research and Analysis. This program is professionally developed for faculty who work with students or in disciplines underrepresented in public policy. The initiative is part of the Pardee RAND Graduate School, which awards fellowships to 12-15 selected faculty to participate in a week-long policy analysis summer program.
"RAND was an extraordinary place for me because they thought big thoughts. They actually like huge ideas. They wanted people who had an entrepreneurial inclination and had big ideas and wanted to change the world," said Raynard Kington, President Grinnell College, former Deputy Director of NIH and RAND researcher.
