This is the second article in our four-part think tank guide (part 1, part 3, part 4).

It isn’t always clear what organizations should be included under the “think tank” heading.¹ Heuristics for telling think tanks apart from similar organizations include looking at their mission statement (is research with policy impact the main activity/goal?), target audience (are published products aimed at/designed for a policy audience?), and key staff (are senior positions filled by people with government/policy backgrounds?). Think tanks can exist within universities, such as the Center for Security and Emerging Technology at Georgetown, but most university centers are not think tanks.²

Within the “think tank” category, there is also a lot of variety. There are more than a hundred think tanks in DC alone.³ And, as discussed later, many think tanks also vary a lot internally since they are often highly decentralized—functioning as “conglomerates” of functionally independent programs, each with their own culture and approach.

Academics who study US think tanks generally group them into three overarching categories: 

1. University without students, whose policy research agendas are set by individual researchers or teams who raise money from a combination of foundations, corporations, and sometimes governments.
2. Contract researchers funded primarily by government contracts for projects addressing highly specific policy questions.
3. Advocacy tanks funded by both public and private philanthropy and typically focused on pushing a specific agenda rather than conducting open-ended research.

Different think tank models were popular at different times, so how old a think tank is often predicts which category it falls into (“universities without students” are generally older, “advocacy tanks” newer). The table below summarizes how these categories differ.⁴

Think tank archetype	Staffing	Funding source	Agenda setting	Prototypical products	Often-cited examples
University without students	Emphasis on PhDs or other terminal degrees, policy experience	Foundations, corporations, sometimes governments	Individual researchers and funders	Reports in nonpartisan style, sometimes books	Brookings, Peterson Institute for International Economics
Contract researcher	Emphasis on PhDs and/or specialized skills and backgrounds	Government contracts	Contract sources (e.g. government agencies)	Reports and other services for clients (mix of public and classified)	RAND, Urban Institute
Advocacy tank	Less emphasis on formal credentials, more on political alignment and connections	Donors focused on specific issues or policy agendas, including public and philanthropy	Organizational leadership	Reports in outspoken or partisan style, more op-eds and advocacy	Heritage, Center for American Progress, World Resources Institute

We won’t go into too much detail here, but it’s worth emphasizing how large these differences can be. For example:

differences among think tanks are evident, for instance, in the proportion of scholars at different institutions who hold PhD degrees. A review of publicly available data about the educational backgrounds of think-tank scholars…suggests that those think tanks that were founded earlier [and thus more likely to be “universities without students”] tend to have significantly more scholars with PhDs today than do younger institutions. Among a representative group of think tanks founded before 1960, for instance, 53% of scholars hold PhDs. Among a similarly representative group of think tanks founded between 1960 and 1980, 23% of scholars have such advanced degrees. And among those founded after 1980, only 13% of scholars are as highly educated.⁵

There are several ways one could quibble with the three-type typology, and some think tanks do not fit neatly into one of the three categories. But the typology highlights the critical idea that think tanks differ a great deal from each other. This also means your experience working at one think tank may be quite different from working at another.

Think tank functions and activities

All think tanks aim to leverage their expertise, network, and time in order to affect policy. But they do so in different ways, through varying combinations of: 

1. Research: conducting original research and analysis 
2. Outreach and advocacy: promoting and amplifying pre-existing analysis and ideas (often done by the think tank itself)
3. Convening and education: bringing together stakeholders and providing educational opportunities to policymakers

Research

This bucket of think tank activities includes coming up with wholly new policy ideas, conducting original data collection and analysis, or (most frequently) publishing new syntheses or framings based on pre-existing research. The core feature of this work is that it focuses on ideas and truth-finding—with the goal of figuring out what policy recommendations to make or prioritize—and that projects are started without necessarily having a preconceived conclusion. Research efforts often lead to published reports, blog posts, or articles in popular outlets, but also occasionally other outputs such as non-public memos for specific policymakers, books, or interactive data platforms. 

Research is what most people outside of DC (and many in DC) often associate with think tank work—in part because the outputs are visible and legible to them—but it is by no means the only thing think tanks do.

Outreach and advocacy

Outreach and advocacy work at think tanks centers on promoting existing analysis and ideas, including those developed at the think tank itself or those adapted from elsewhere. For advocacy projects, the core challenge is not coming up with something new, but identifying target audiences and (re)packaging ideas and arguments to persuade those audiences. Even many advocacy-focused think tanks do publish research, in part to build credibility for the policy ideas they support. But much of their advocacy work happens behind the scenes, through everything from private briefings (e.g. for staffers in agencies or Congress) to conversations over coffee. Some advocacy-focused think tanks—which have historically been 501(c)(3)s with limits on political activity—have an associated 501(c)(4) organization that gives them more flexibility to engage in lobbying. Examples of this include the Center for American Progress and Center for Budget and Policy Priorities on the left and the Heritage Foundation and CATO on the right.

Some advocacy-focused think tanks try to mobilize the public, whereas others choose to focus almost entirely on behind-the-scenes activities (see e.g. Niskanen’s conspectus for a discussion of why it “relentlessly focuses on Washington insiders”⁶). Advocacy-focused think tanks are often but not necessarily partisan. Non-partisan think tanks that do advocacy tend to be narrowly focused on specific issues, for example the Federation of American Scientists, World Resources Institute, Arms Control Association, or the Good Food Institute. (The lines between “think tanks” and advocacy organizations that do some research are often blurry—many examples here are hard to categorize.)

Convening and education

Finally, some think tanks aim to serve as hubs where policy professionals convene for discussion and education. These can involve activities focused purely on US policy audiences—such as the Congressional staff seminars organized by the Wilson Center, Heritage, and others—while others focus on international networking and convening—such as the Atlantic Council’s US-Turkey Congressional-Parliamentary Fellowship program. Many think tanks also host government staff for temporary stints as a professional development and networking exercise (e.g. CSIS’s Military Fellows, CNAS’s Senior Military Fellows, Brookings’ Federal Executive Fellows). These types of programs often reinforce think tanks’ other activities, for example by letting think tankers network with Congressional staffers and thereby making later research or advocacy more effective. “Convening” (the local term of art) roundtables of domestic and international experts and stakeholders is also an oft-used method for idea generation and dissemination.

Many think tanks do all of the above in at least some form. In general, though, the DC think tank scene seems to be trending away from the heavily research-focused, “university without students” model of the oldest think tanks. The term “do tank” has a buzzword-y feeling to it, but is also used by serious organizations and reflects a shift toward more action-oriented think tank models. Part of what drives this shift is increased competition in the “ideas industry” and the feeling that bringing analysis and advocacy under one roof is often more effective from an impact perspective.

The conglomerate question: “Think tanks” versus “programs”

Besides the type of activities they engage in, another important dimension along which think tanks differ is how centralized or decentralized they are. Most of the biggest think tanks—and some smaller ones as well—are closer to “conglomerates”: entities that contain smaller entities, which often have different cultures and functional independence in research, outreach, agenda-setting, fundraising, etc. At those think tanks, what really matters is what “program” you work in. Program A and Program B can differ greatly, even when they are both at Think Tank X.

An illustrative example of a think tank toward the “conglomerate” end of the spectrum is the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). CSIS has dozens of programs, many of which overlap in terms of their scope. For example, it has three separate China-focused teams (#1, #2, #3). These groups sometimes collaborate, but are also independent; if you work at one of the teams, it’s not guaranteed that you would interact much with the other two teams’ staff—despite your overlapping interests. Programs can also differ greatly in what types of activities they focus on. For example, whereas many CSIS projects focus on traditional analysis, its Project on Nuclear Issues (PONI) has a large focus on training and network-building. For “conglomerate” think tanks like CSIS, stories you hear about one program may not tell you much about what another program is like.

No point on the “conglomerate” spectrum is strictly superior. But if you’re considering working at a think tank, it’s worth asking around to know where it falls on that spectrum, as it will affect who you will (or won’t) get to work with, what work culture is like, who needs to approve papers and projects, who is in charge of fundraising and strategic prioritization, and so forth.

Footnotes