Research Integrity

RAND is nonprofit and nonpartisan. We believe that policy research should serve the public good—not political or financial interests.

Photos by Mordolff and Orbon Alija/Getty Images and Diane Baldwin/RAND. Design by Haley Okuley.

Why You Can Trust RAND Research

We pursue RAND’s mission to help improve policy and decisionmaking by leading with our core values of quality and objectivity. We’re also committed to the highest level of integrity and ethical behavior.

Here are just a few of the ways RAND ensures that our research and analysis are rigorous, objective, and in the public interest.

Standards for High-Quality Research

RAND research products undergo a robust and exacting quality-assurance process. We’re dedicated to avoiding both the appearance and reality of financial and other conflicts of interest through staff training, project screening, and a policy of mandatory disclosure.

Free and Open Publication

Thousands of RAND studies are available to the public for free on rand.org. RAND pursues transparency in our research engagements through the open publication of our findings and recommendations, disclosure of the source of funding of published research, and policies to ensure intellectual independence.

Trusted and Innovative Methods

Our research methods—both those we leverage and those we create—guide how we collect and analyze data, make inferences from those analyses, and craft recommendations for policy and practice. Solid methods help RAND ensure that our analyses are objective and that our proposed solutions are effective.