Harvard University Program on Information Resources Policy
   
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We work in the middle range
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Bullet In a Nutshell

        Our mission is to help policymakers, our Affiliates, and the public address changes in communications and information resources. Since 1973 we have worked with stakeholders to clarify what is at stake, how, for whom, and how to deal with it.

        To be useful in private and public spheres, our work must be impartial and competent. Toward this end, we have invented a unique process:

  • We deal mainly with controversial matters of continuing relevance.
  • We work on emerging issues in the middle time range—a focus close enough for the issues to be of concern to real stakeholders and remote enough for outcomes to be open.
  • We lay out the essentials of controversies but do not take sides, make recommendations, or attempt to predict the future.
  • We forego relationships that might bias us—such as consulting, partisan expert testimony, or membership on corporate boards.
  • We operate with diversified financial support from stakeholders in the controversies worked on.
  • Our work is reviewed by these stakeholders and by members of the relevant professions and disciplines.
  • All our work is available to the public. Everyone knows in advance that this is so.
  • Our work is neither proprietary nor classified. We neither work toward external deadlines nor respond to requests for proposals (RFPs).
  • We aspire to intellectual, financial, and institutional stability regardless of the ins and outs of fashions and incumbencies.

         We have invented a niche that is not filled by corporate, congressional, White House, or agency staffs, by conventional academic "policy analysis" or basic research, or by conventional consultants or "think tanks."

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