Posting some anonymous feedback I received from someone who has spent a number of years in a Mass Ave think tank:
“First, one place where I think you can further reinforce the argument is doubling down that corporate support for think tanks is not going to solve this problem. In my experience, little of that funding trickles down to providing for early career staff—to the point where using expanded funding to grow the number of early career roles is highly unlikely. Think tanks would rather spend that money on senior scholars or research trips, not adding new RAs. That feeds into a second point on think tank culture...
Second, while it varies between institutions, I think it’s important to note that even with more unrestricted funding, multiple think tanks around town don’t see it as part of their mission/culture to foster the next generation of experts. There are think tanks in town, like Brookings, that have deep challenges in this space. On the other hand, CSET, among other strengths you mention, seems pretty good at this. CNAS remains the gold standard for me. But I think it’s worth grappling with the fact that there are places around town that—though they wouldn’t say it out loud in public—wouldn’t want a big infusion of money tightly tied to adding early career staff because senior scholars would see “dealing with” those people as impinging on their time. So there’s a toxic culture dimension here that more money alone won’t fix. But I do think that’s addressable in your model by calling out some places suck at professional development and avoiding funding them for this purpose; that public pressure might push them to do better!
Third, both in terms of great power conflict, but also even more so around competitiveness, it seems worth discussing why corporate won’t fill some of the gap in its own for-profit need rather than through non-profit philanthropy. You mention Eurasia Group and ASG in a line, but I could see some thinking as corporations need to manage their interactions with an increasingly fraught China market, won’t they have to hire knowledgeable China experts and won’t that be a demand signal? I think you and I would agree the answer is (a) possibly no; and (b) even if yes, it wouldn’t be a sufficient number or make sure good public policy is made by private-trained people (not that they can’t contribute, of course; we just benefit most from a healthy mix). So that just suggests 2-3 sentences defanging a counter-argument that would further strengthen yours.
Fourth, your highlighting early career bottlenecks make a lot of sense to me. Just one additional point you could make on that is those bottlenecks also spur a lot of early career drag. It’s not just that the limited numbers of opportunities box people out, even the people who make it through the eye of the needle are hampered in their productivity because they have to spend an inordinate amount of time fighting to get through the bottleneck and preparing for the next one. Early career opportunities are often time bound, so even when successful they immediately have to invest time in finding the next fellowship, job hunting, etc. Even the fortunate ones are not working/developing at anywhere near their capabilities because of this persistent time suck.
Finally, on scaling the CSET model, I think it’s right in substance. More CSETs are what the policy community needs to inform their work. My question about whether it works in practice comes from my read of the think tank world as a traditional biological ecosystem. To compete and survive, each organism finds its specific niche based on a combination of (a) the substance they focus on; (b) the types of products they produce; and (c) any political leanings. Having many of a single type doesn’t quite work because they crowd each other out for attention and struggle for funding. Will philanthropic funders be OK with their investments being one of several good think tanks doing work on this, or will there be pressure to focus on the best in a way that drives competitors out of the market? To put it another way, does the think tank market make sense to build several CSETs or to super-size the existing CSET to do more? I think from a good policy perspective, multiple CSETs providing different analytical inputs is better; what I don’t know is if funders will see that value as sufficient to long-term support something seen as “good but not the clear best.”
Just some thoughts as you continue on next steps. But none of it takes away from the fact that I think the piece stands extremely well as-is in terms of being correct in its analysis, making a necessary point, and doing it well. It’s just fingers crossed funders see the wisdom!”
Posting some anonymous feedback I received from someone who has spent a number of years in a Mass Ave think tank:
“First, one place where I think you can further reinforce the argument is doubling down that corporate support for think tanks is not going to solve this problem. In my experience, little of that funding trickles down to providing for early career staff—to the point where using expanded funding to grow the number of early career roles is highly unlikely. Think tanks would rather spend that money on senior scholars or research trips, not adding new RAs. That feeds into a second point on think tank culture...
Second, while it varies between institutions, I think it’s important to note that even with more unrestricted funding, multiple think tanks around town don’t see it as part of their mission/culture to foster the next generation of experts. There are think tanks in town, like Brookings, that have deep challenges in this space. On the other hand, CSET, among other strengths you mention, seems pretty good at this. CNAS remains the gold standard for me. But I think it’s worth grappling with the fact that there are places around town that—though they wouldn’t say it out loud in public—wouldn’t want a big infusion of money tightly tied to adding early career staff because senior scholars would see “dealing with” those people as impinging on their time. So there’s a toxic culture dimension here that more money alone won’t fix. But I do think that’s addressable in your model by calling out some places suck at professional development and avoiding funding them for this purpose; that public pressure might push them to do better!
Third, both in terms of great power conflict, but also even more so around competitiveness, it seems worth discussing why corporate won’t fill some of the gap in its own for-profit need rather than through non-profit philanthropy. You mention Eurasia Group and ASG in a line, but I could see some thinking as corporations need to manage their interactions with an increasingly fraught China market, won’t they have to hire knowledgeable China experts and won’t that be a demand signal? I think you and I would agree the answer is (a) possibly no; and (b) even if yes, it wouldn’t be a sufficient number or make sure good public policy is made by private-trained people (not that they can’t contribute, of course; we just benefit most from a healthy mix). So that just suggests 2-3 sentences defanging a counter-argument that would further strengthen yours.
Fourth, your highlighting early career bottlenecks make a lot of sense to me. Just one additional point you could make on that is those bottlenecks also spur a lot of early career drag. It’s not just that the limited numbers of opportunities box people out, even the people who make it through the eye of the needle are hampered in their productivity because they have to spend an inordinate amount of time fighting to get through the bottleneck and preparing for the next one. Early career opportunities are often time bound, so even when successful they immediately have to invest time in finding the next fellowship, job hunting, etc. Even the fortunate ones are not working/developing at anywhere near their capabilities because of this persistent time suck.
Finally, on scaling the CSET model, I think it’s right in substance. More CSETs are what the policy community needs to inform their work. My question about whether it works in practice comes from my read of the think tank world as a traditional biological ecosystem. To compete and survive, each organism finds its specific niche based on a combination of (a) the substance they focus on; (b) the types of products they produce; and (c) any political leanings. Having many of a single type doesn’t quite work because they crowd each other out for attention and struggle for funding. Will philanthropic funders be OK with their investments being one of several good think tanks doing work on this, or will there be pressure to focus on the best in a way that drives competitors out of the market? To put it another way, does the think tank market make sense to build several CSETs or to super-size the existing CSET to do more? I think from a good policy perspective, multiple CSETs providing different analytical inputs is better; what I don’t know is if funders will see that value as sufficient to long-term support something seen as “good but not the clear best.”
Just some thoughts as you continue on next steps. But none of it takes away from the fact that I think the piece stands extremely well as-is in terms of being correct in its analysis, making a necessary point, and doing it well. It’s just fingers crossed funders see the wisdom!”