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Political party think tanks (PPTTs) are important to the performance of parties' core functions. Despite their importance, they have largely escaped academic attention. To understand the role of PPTTs in contemporary politics, we develop a typology of their key functions (distinguishing between political party and think tank functions), and target audiences (distinguishing between internal and external target groups). Based on a comprehensive literature review and 22 in-depth interviews with leading representatives of PPTTs in the Netherlands and Flanders, we identify four types of PPTTs: Party Assistants, Party Supporters, Party Promoters and Party Intellectuals. The characteristics of the four types of PPTTs are illustrated through the analysis of four paradigmatic cases: the Study Centre Open Vld as an example of a Party Assistant, the Scientific Bureau GroenLinks as an example of a Party Supporter, the Renaissance Institute as an example of a Party Promoter, and the TeldersFoundation as an example of a Party Intellectual.

The science is clear: climate change is real. In 2015, 195 countries adopted the global climate deal in Paris. Nonetheless, numerous well-organized conservative think tanks (CTTs) deny that climate change is happening. We ask what kind of counterclaims are used by climate-sceptic CTTs and to what extent these counterclaims change over time. We analyse about 2500 blog articles from prominent CTTs in the USA and Germany between 2008 and 2016. Our results show that sceptical arguments about climate policy and science dominate the countermovement. At the same time, we detect that the prevalence of counterclaims is CTT-specific and that US think tanks show a greater variability compared to their German counterparts. In a surprising outcome, we find that the Paris Agreement did not affect the climate denial movement. Based on these insights, we discuss our contributions to social movement research in the climate change denial context and derive conclusions for pro-climate campaigns.

This paper examines the influence evaluation method of think tanks in the press and publishing industry, focusing on their influence on policies, academic studies and the society and comprehensive influence. Based on the results, an index system centered on the ITTAP model is established for influence evaluation of press and publishing think tanks in China. This paper is an extract from the book Influence Evaluation of Think Tanks in Chinese Press and Publishing Industry in 2020.

The European Huntington’s Disease Network (EHDN) is an independent non-profit organisation dedicated to advancing research, conducting clinical trials and improving care for people affected by Huntington’s disease (HD). In order to advance research, EHDN has developed a number of strategies. (1) The seed fund scheme enables researchers to generate pilot data before applying for larger grants from other organisations, or to conduct power calculations for clinical studies. There are two calls per year (1 March and 1 November). The maximum sum available per seed fund project is EUR 50.000. (2) The prospective, observational, longitudinal Registry study was conducted at 151 HD clinical sites across 17 European countries between 2004 and 2017. The data are available in the Registry dataset (RDS). The format is similar to the Enroll-HD periodic dataset (PDS), using the same recoded IDs, if researchers wanted to use both data sets. (3) The EHDN Think Tank complements and facilitates EHDN research initiatives such as the Working Groups (WG) or task forces (TF). The Think Tank (a) interacts with WG and TF lead facilitators to help identify potential collaborators or funding opportunities for their research, or if they want to discuss scientific ideas, and (b) identifies key scientific questions in HD, some of which could be addressed scientifically by HD researchers through existing or new WGs or TFs. (4) The EHDN Grant and collaborations manager can support HD researchers in identifying potential funding opportunities and collaborations. EHDN is supported by the CHDI Foundation.

While the number of think tanks active in American politics has more than quadrupled since the 1970s, their influence has not expanded proportionally. Instead, the known ideological proclivities of many, especially newer think tanks with their aggressive efforts to obtain high profiles, have come to undermine the credibility with which experts and expertise are generally viewed by public officials. This book explains this paradox. The analysis is based on 135 in-depth interviews with officials at think tanks and those in the policy making and funding organizations that draw upon and support their work. The book reports on results from a survey of congressional staff and journalists and detailed case studies of the role of experts in health care and telecommunications reform debates in the 1990s and tax reduction in 2001.

This paper combines the nine-factor model with the construction of university think tanks, establishes the strategic positioning of university think tanks, analyzes the methods and measures of cultivating leading talents and innovative talents in university think tanks and classifies the influence of university think tanks into decision-making influence, elite influence and popular influence. Based on the analysis of big data and concerning the fuzzy hierarchical analysis method, the evaluation model of information service quality of university think tanks has been established. The evaluation indexes of the information platform of university think tanks are divided into four indexes: service resources, service content, webpage technology, and service effect. According to the constructed evaluation indexes, two-by-two comparisons are made between each index to obtain the score of the importance of each index. Based on fuzzy mathematics, the qualitative evaluation can be transformed into quantitative evaluation according to the principle of affiliation degree to arrive at the evaluation grade of the information platform capacity of university think tanks and innovative talents.

What kind of ancestors will those involved in climate change countermovements (CCMs) be? Among CCMs, the Heartland Institute has been an adaptive conservative think tank in the United States (USA) over the past decades, with funding from carbon-based industry-linked groups that has amplified the reach of their claims while shaping their power and influence in the USA public sphere. Through inductive qualitative methods and grounded theory, this study appraises their ongoing clout as garnered through interviews and participant observations from the 14th International Conference on Climate Change hosted by the Heartland Institute in 2021. Thematic findings are compared and contrasted with previous interview data and participant observations at the 2011 Heartland Institute conference. This research finds ten key themes—five comparisons and five contrasts—that point to adaptive strategies deployed in ongoing and wider CCM efforts that effectively shape sustainability technology and climate policy. Similarities over time are (1) freedom and liberty; (2) attacks on relevant-expert scientists, science, and “alarmism”; (3) rhetoric of embattled underdogs fighting orthodoxies; (4) evidence of righteousness and confidence; and (5) adversarial mentalities. Differences are (1) waning attention, (2) diminished influence, (3) an increased appetite for “culture wars,” (4) more personal reflection on legacy, and (5) increased entrenchment in state-level activities such as anti-environmental, social, and governance (ESG) principles initiatives. Spanning a decade, this work assesses how these Heartland Institute climate contrarians’ claims provide insights into ongoing adaptive CCM activities with critical attention paid to how they politicize and polarize decision-making at multiple scales in contemporary society.

Indigenous peoples in Canada and in the Circumpolar North face a higher disease burden leading to end-stage organ failure and face geographic and systemic barriers to accessing health-care services, including those for end-stage organ failure and organ donation and transplantation (ODT). To address these issues, I present a think tank model used in Saskatchewan, Canada, which focused on ODT and recommended research and policy changes that address inequitable Indigenous access to ODT, most specifically in northern and remote regions. Over the past three years, think tank members, comprised of Indigenous cultural leaders, elders, and persons with lived experience in ODT, and complemented by medical and advocacy exports, have highlighted equity and utility issues as key concerns, and discussed ways in which these issues can be addressed. Recommendations include culturally-safe methods for documenting and tracking Indigenous identity, development of training to address culturally specific needs, and additional funding to support Indigenous transplant donors and recipients.

This paper presents an exploratory examination of regional think tanks in Japan and outlines the contribution that such an examination can make both as a comparative Asian case for regional think tank research as well as in theorization of regional think tanks on the basis of various constructs of place priority. After briefly outlining the main trends and tensions in the study of think tanks in general and providing an overview of the literature on think tanks in Japan, the paper focuses specifically on the small-scale regional think tanks situated throughout Japan. The conclusions are twofold. First of all, the research builds on previous research in furthering the descriptive characteristics of Japanese regional think tanks. Second, the research outlines various place priority constructs through which regional think tanks can be described, compared, and analyzed. These are the specific dimensions of influence that place priority think tanks bring to their locale: local development through infrastructural advocacy, local development through objective information generation, and local development through knowledge and leadership cultivation. The analysis that leads to these conclusions speaks on a broader level to the contribution that such a focus on small-scale think tanks can make to research on think tanks at large. Case study of such regional think tanks offers insight into a major tension confronting contemporary think tank research: agenda advocacy versus the various other objectives that think tanks aim for.

This study used the provincial panel data on policy adoption rate of university-affiliated think tanks in China from 2005 to 2017 and built a fixed effects model to explore the impact of the policy adoption rate of university-affiliated think tanks on China’s economic growth. The results indicated that China’s university-affiliated think tanks developed rapidly and the quality of policy advice improved significantly, but obvious regional imbalance existed. The policy adoption rate of university-affiliated think tanks can significantly affect China’s economic growth. The impact was significant in the eastern developed region and western underdeveloped region but not in the moderately developed region in central China. The impact was significant in both the southern developed region and northern underdeveloped region, while the impact in the south was more significant than this in the north. Besides, the policy adoption rate of university-affiliated think tanks had obvious time effect on China’s economic growth. As time went by, the effect became stronger, which was significant in eastern and central China but not in the western region. The enhancement of effect was significant in both the southern and northern regions, while the enhancement in the south was higher than this in the north.