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MacArthur Foundation - Research Networks
webCredibility Rating
4/5
High(4)High quality. Established institution or organization with editorial oversight and accountability.
Rating inherited from publication venue: MacArthur Foundation
Describes a historical philanthropic model for interdisciplinary research collaboration; tangentially relevant to AI safety governance as a model for coordinating multi-stakeholder research on complex societal challenges.
Metadata
Importance: 18/100homepage
Summary
The MacArthur Foundation supported interdisciplinary 'research institutions without walls' from 1984 to 2021, bringing together researchers, practitioners, and policymakers across disciplines to tackle complex social problems over multi-year periods. These networks produced influential work including early foundations for behavioral economics and juvenile justice reforms informed by adolescent brain science. The model emphasized collaborative, paradigm-shifting inquiry without prescribing outcomes.
Key Points
- •Funded interdisciplinary research networks for ~37 years across human development, mental health, economics, and other domains.
- •Networks ran 6–10 years, combining academic and applied researchers with policymakers to ground work in real-world concerns.
- •Contributed to behavioral economics foundations and Supreme Court decisions banning juvenile death penalty based on brain development research.
- •Explicit focus on translating research findings into policy and practice impact, not just academic publication.
- •A 2000 review found networks effective at accelerating breakthroughs, changing concepts, and using evidence to influence policy.
Cited by 1 page
| Page | Type | Quality |
|---|---|---|
| MacArthur Foundation | Organization | 65.0 |
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# Research Networks
From 1984 to 2021, The Foundation supported interdisciplinary research networks that examined problems and addressed empirical questions that had the potential to change prevailing paradigms.
Addressing social and physical needs of elderly citizens was core to the Research Network on Aging Society which focused on how major societal institutions will have to change to support the emergence of a productive, equitable aging society.
### **About Our Research Networks**
We supported interdisciplinary research networks, "research institutions without walls," on topics related primarily to human and community development. The Foundation-initiated projects brought together highly talented individuals from a spectrum of disciplines, perspectives, and research methods. The networks examined problems and addressed empirical questions that increased the understanding of fundamental social issues and contributed to significant improvements in policy and practice.
Research networks were a signature MacArthur “way of working.” They were designed to identify a big problem and bring together researchers, practitioners, and policymakers from multiple disciplines to work collaboratively over an extended period of time, typically six to as many as ten years. Ambitious and innovative−but not prescriptive−research networks liberated their members to pursue work that had the potential to change prevailing paradigms.
We did not know from the beginning what the results of a research network would be; however, our experiences suggest that providing the space and resources for motivated, dynamic thinkers to come together to solve complex challenges can be often fruitful.
### **History**
Through the Foundation’s first two decades, the networks were clustered in five areas: human development; mental illness; mental health and physical health; parasite biology; and economics.
Over the years, research networks evolved. Initially focused on funding individual investigators in academic research, networks later embraced both academic and applied research. Moreover, recent research networks were designed with explicit attention to how research findings can be communicated to and inform policymakers and practitioners and include practitioner members to help ground the inquiry in real world concerns.
Research networks have been credited with multiple accomplishments. Work through the suite of economics networks helped lay the early foundations for what is now widely known as behavioral economics. Research from the Network on Adolescent Development and Juvenile Justice found that
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