RAND Corporation

Orientation: independent and nonpartisan, with a technocratic, evidence-first style rather than an ideological one. Funding: mostly the US federal government; in 2024 about $328 million of its $514 million in revenue came from federal sources, the rest from foundations, companies, universities and other governments. RAND began in 1945 as Project RAND, an Air Force research effort run through Douglas Aircraft, and became an independent nonprofit in 1948. Paul Baran's packet switching work there fed into the networks behind the internet, and its Health Insurance Experiment, run from 1974 to 1982, remains a landmark study of how what patients pay changes the care they use. Because so much is commissioned, check who asked the question.