What is the future of global development Think Tanks?
As a year of multiple crises is coming to a close, I am a bit surprised that we have not heard more about the crisis of Think Tanks.
The UN system is in crisis, global academia and philanthropy for sure as well and listing my collection of “the end of USAID” articles probably deserves its own blog post…so where does that leave global development Thinks Tanks?
At the very least there are some interesting developments in policy-making, academia, media and communication that will likely have an impact on the traditional set-up of how Think Tanks will (share their) work in the future.
Many of these developments are not new or “Trump”-in fact I found an old post from January 2019 that asked Can you imagine a world without Think Tanks? (the promised follow-up post never materialized though...). But that was also before culture wars and AI...
Culture wars and the end of evidence-based policy-making
As mind-bogging as the decline of evidence-based development policy-making is, it also threatens the core product of Think Tanks: Providing information and analysis, based on time spent “thinking” and in an environment where nuances are appreciated and thoughtful policy proposals emerge, ready to influence public and political debates. But in many core field of global cooperation (aid, migration, multilateralism), culture wars seem to have taken over and it threatens the core “business model” of many Thinks Tanks.
Academic entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial academics
For the purpose of this post I do not really want to name specific colleagues, but you probably subscribe to many of their Substacks, listen to their podcast or enjoy other content they produce from curated social media feeds, accessible summaries of their academic work or recorded lectures. Some of their engagement may even be fueled by the global crisis in higher education where visibility, “impact” and measurable metrics are becoming even more prominent.
But when I looked at the set-up of a colleague’s large ERC research project the other day and found communication staff, non-academic outputs, several researchers attached to the project and strategic engagement with policy and societal “stakeholders”, I thought that they were pretty much running a small Think Tank-funded by the European taxpayers.
So where is the advantage of “just” being a Think Tank without students and academic outputs?
What about “localization” and “decolonization”?
As critical as you should always be about the buzzwords of the month, there are serious issues looming that I feel many Think Tanks are hardly addressing. They are still based in the development capitals of the North-to influence policy etc.. But why can the (insert your favorite Think Tank in London, Washington, D.C. or Geneva here) not move to the “Global South”, influence policy “there” and just have a small office in the Northern capitals to organize events?
Given the current visa and migration regimes, it is hard for Think Tanks to diversify staff in Northern hubs and there is a risk that a Northern elite clings on to their jobs. But even if you stay at your current home base, how do you engage in a meaningful way in Brussels, Berlin or Paris-both locally with grassroots organizations for example and in a noisy, hyper-mediatized political environment?
The decline of journalism and media development
As part of the global development polycrisis mentioned at the beginning of my post, journalism probably deserves a mentioning, too.
The traditional “ecosystems” of research, background information and using Think Tank expertise may be still intact for a few global quality media brands, but opportunities to talk about global issues in a detailed and nuanced way are getting fewer-and often by the usual New York Times/Guardian/Economist suspects.
At the same time, media development funding has been reduced significantly which raises important questions about the future of journalism in many countries and its role as intermediaries between Think Tanks and “the public” for example or resource to ensure journalistic outputs maintain a certain standard.
Do entrepreneurial journalists connect to Think Tanks or do they have to focus on other information and topics that ensure Substack subscriptions and Ko-Fi donations?
An interconnected crisis that affects how we communicate development
No post these days is really complete without asking “but what about AI?”…so what about AI?
The crisis of standardized written documents (UN reports, academic publications, Think Tank policy briefs) is real and AI will only make it worse. Sure, AI can provide a decent summary of your latest long-read report, but that cannot be the future of one of the key products of Think Tanks? And if we stick with a slightly more optimistic vision for AI, could ChatGPT not become some kind of “Think Tank” collecting, synthesizing, analyzing and presenting information on “scenarios for UN Security Council reforms”?
The nature of the crisis is interconnected; hence finger-pointing at Think Tanks is too easy. I am experiencing some of the same dilemmas around engagement and outputs at my public Swedish university and these are also questions that are increasingly important for our Communication for Development (ComDev) students-and for us as teachers and researchers. How can we communicate development knowledge, engage in debates and take into consideration global shifts-not all of them bad?
I think many Think Tanks (like many other development institutions) seem to sit things out-wait for the famous “next election”, look for more funding elsewhere or believe that the social, political and cultural climate will change.
I am not optimistic and I am left wondering what the future will hold for Think Tanks. The final words from my post from 2019 have aged reasonable well, I think:
The UN system is in crisis, global academia and philanthropy for sure as well and listing my collection of “the end of USAID” articles probably deserves its own blog post…so where does that leave global development Thinks Tanks?
At the very least there are some interesting developments in policy-making, academia, media and communication that will likely have an impact on the traditional set-up of how Think Tanks will (share their) work in the future.
Many of these developments are not new or “Trump”-in fact I found an old post from January 2019 that asked Can you imagine a world without Think Tanks? (the promised follow-up post never materialized though...). But that was also before culture wars and AI...
Culture wars and the end of evidence-based policy-making
As mind-bogging as the decline of evidence-based development policy-making is, it also threatens the core product of Think Tanks: Providing information and analysis, based on time spent “thinking” and in an environment where nuances are appreciated and thoughtful policy proposals emerge, ready to influence public and political debates. But in many core field of global cooperation (aid, migration, multilateralism), culture wars seem to have taken over and it threatens the core “business model” of many Thinks Tanks.
Academic entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial academics
For the purpose of this post I do not really want to name specific colleagues, but you probably subscribe to many of their Substacks, listen to their podcast or enjoy other content they produce from curated social media feeds, accessible summaries of their academic work or recorded lectures. Some of their engagement may even be fueled by the global crisis in higher education where visibility, “impact” and measurable metrics are becoming even more prominent.
But when I looked at the set-up of a colleague’s large ERC research project the other day and found communication staff, non-academic outputs, several researchers attached to the project and strategic engagement with policy and societal “stakeholders”, I thought that they were pretty much running a small Think Tank-funded by the European taxpayers.
So where is the advantage of “just” being a Think Tank without students and academic outputs?
What about “localization” and “decolonization”?
As critical as you should always be about the buzzwords of the month, there are serious issues looming that I feel many Think Tanks are hardly addressing. They are still based in the development capitals of the North-to influence policy etc.. But why can the (insert your favorite Think Tank in London, Washington, D.C. or Geneva here) not move to the “Global South”, influence policy “there” and just have a small office in the Northern capitals to organize events?
Given the current visa and migration regimes, it is hard for Think Tanks to diversify staff in Northern hubs and there is a risk that a Northern elite clings on to their jobs. But even if you stay at your current home base, how do you engage in a meaningful way in Brussels, Berlin or Paris-both locally with grassroots organizations for example and in a noisy, hyper-mediatized political environment?
The decline of journalism and media development
As part of the global development polycrisis mentioned at the beginning of my post, journalism probably deserves a mentioning, too.
The traditional “ecosystems” of research, background information and using Think Tank expertise may be still intact for a few global quality media brands, but opportunities to talk about global issues in a detailed and nuanced way are getting fewer-and often by the usual New York Times/Guardian/Economist suspects.
At the same time, media development funding has been reduced significantly which raises important questions about the future of journalism in many countries and its role as intermediaries between Think Tanks and “the public” for example or resource to ensure journalistic outputs maintain a certain standard.
Do entrepreneurial journalists connect to Think Tanks or do they have to focus on other information and topics that ensure Substack subscriptions and Ko-Fi donations?
An interconnected crisis that affects how we communicate development
No post these days is really complete without asking “but what about AI?”…so what about AI?
The crisis of standardized written documents (UN reports, academic publications, Think Tank policy briefs) is real and AI will only make it worse. Sure, AI can provide a decent summary of your latest long-read report, but that cannot be the future of one of the key products of Think Tanks? And if we stick with a slightly more optimistic vision for AI, could ChatGPT not become some kind of “Think Tank” collecting, synthesizing, analyzing and presenting information on “scenarios for UN Security Council reforms”?
The nature of the crisis is interconnected; hence finger-pointing at Think Tanks is too easy. I am experiencing some of the same dilemmas around engagement and outputs at my public Swedish university and these are also questions that are increasingly important for our Communication for Development (ComDev) students-and for us as teachers and researchers. How can we communicate development knowledge, engage in debates and take into consideration global shifts-not all of them bad?
I think many Think Tanks (like many other development institutions) seem to sit things out-wait for the famous “next election”, look for more funding elsewhere or believe that the social, political and cultural climate will change.
I am not optimistic and I am left wondering what the future will hold for Think Tanks. The final words from my post from 2019 have aged reasonable well, I think:
No Think Tank will admit that they are no longer as relevant as they were when founded 20, 30 or more years ago-every bureaucratic institution tends to re-invent itself when times are changing-from UN organizations to NATO, OSCE and university departments, of course.
But if Think Tanks want to stick around is there anything they could do to think out of the tank...box and reinvent themselves?
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