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IPS: the first year
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The Institute for Policy Studies, which began operation in October, 1963, was established because of the need for an independent center of research and education on public policy problems in Washington.
The Institute for Policy Studies, which began operation in October, 1963, was established because of the need for an independent center of research and education on public policy problems in Washington.
In virtually every area of public life there is an urgent need for informed analysis of existing policies and the consideration of practical alternatives. Most present arrangements for studying policy problems suffer from one of two quite opposite defects: scholars are either too far from or too close to the operations of government.
On the one hand, research on current public questions in the universities often tends to be out of touch with political realities. Such research may develop either an out-of-date or largely theoretical picture of how policies are formed or how administrative and political forces actually come into play. On the other hand, when scholars become contractors or consultants to the government, they tend to find themselves supporters of government policy, and do not ordinarily feel free to make basic criticisms or to suggest alternatives outside the general direction of official policy.
The Institute belives consideration of public policy should not be confined to decision makers in government or their outside employees. It is the responsibility of scholars not working for the government to analyze realistic alternative policies and to make their ideas available both for public discussion and official consideration.
The Institute was created, therefore, to serve as a center of intellectual activity in which scholars and government officials can exchange ideas and collaborate on some of the problems most critically in need of new thought.
It is the policy of the Institute that the Fellows themselves frame the research questions they pursue, and that they be able to take independent and critical positions. Since it has seemed essential that the Institute nor any fulltime Fellow may accept a contract or grant from the Federal government.
The Fellows of the Institute have three basic goals: to study the government process at first hand to describe more adequately the social, political and economic reality within which major public problems must be considered; to fashion possible solution to some of these public problems; and to consider how these solutions might be put into effect through the institutions of society. In short, the Fellows are concerned to make knowledge more relevant to politics and to develop techniques for changing institutions so as to make solutions possible.