About

Young woman sitting on bench in college setting.

Research

IPPRA conducts research and builds partnerships by integrating public policy scholarship with the physical and engineering sciences. We aim to increase human well-being, improve social choice infrastructure, and enhance resilience by addressing complex public policy problems and creating opportunities that span natural, technological, and social systems.

Our Research

Enables better public policy decision-making that serves the public interest, stakeholders, and decision makers.
Provides data analysis on how individuals, groups, and decision-makers perceive and respond to an array of threats and opportunities.
Focuses on the human element in complex systems with state-of-the-art theory, data collection and modeling of belief systems, social valuation, public choice, decision-making, human behavior, and public policy analysis methods.

How We Do It

IPPRA employs a diverse range of modeling and state of the art social science methods to achieve a common systems perspective, seeking to integrate the social, natural, and technological components of a problem area. Our applications range from local to international in scope.

Weather, Climate, and Water

With a focus on studying how people understand risk and make decisions under conditions of uncertainty, we continue to expand and develop our research into the communities of practitioners and the public with bearing on policies related to weather, climate, and water at state, regional, national, and international levels.

Energy and the Environment

Using multiple data streams, including nationally representative surveys, focus groups, and social media, we research how institutions, public preferences, political climate, economic environment, stakeholder involvement, and scientific/technical challenges influence the policy process across a range of energy sources (nuclear, hydroelectric, and renewables) relevant to the transition to a decarbonized future.

National Security

Begun in 1993, our research into national security is aimed at studying the evolution of public preferences about multiple dimensions of security, such as nuclear weapons, nuclear disarmament, non-proliferation, and terrorism.

Education and Society

Taking the need for investing in our community seriously, IPPRA has a track record of applying theoretical insights to practical problems to improve education and social policies at the state and national levels.

Public Health

Aimed at understanding how social and behavioral factors influence collective response to emerging societal threats, IPPRA is actively engaged in research that seeks to provide insight into urgent human problems relevant to public health policy.