Research Agenda

The questions the Institute
is currently investigating.

The questions currently on the Institute's public agenda, across the four pillars. Each carries a status, a publication target, and a path from question to output. Published work is listed alongside; the agenda itself covers what is still open.

Status legend
In productionDeliverable identified, writing underway Being scopedQuestion defined, scope developing Longer-termOn the agenda, not yet scheduled PublishedOutput available
Pillar I
Responsible AI
AI and Emerging Technology Governance

How institutions govern AI and adjacent emerging technologies as systems become more autonomous, adaptive, and embedded in consequential decisions. The work examines accountability, organizational design, deployment governance, and the institutional capabilities required when static rules are no longer enough.

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Published under this pillar
Where do MAS lifecycle controls, EU AI Act post-deployment obligations, FDA Total Product Lifecycle frameworks, and SR 11-7 evolution converge in operational expectations?
In production Horizon Scan 002 · Q3 2026
What does provenance and accountability require once synthetic media can be produced at institutional scale, and which controls actually hold?
In production Research Brief 003 · Q3 2026
Following Brief 002: how should the three lines of defense be reallocated when the first-line actor is a system rather than a person, and who then owns the risk across product, engineering, compliance, and legal?
Being scoped Research Brief · Q4 2026
Pillar II
Human Performance
Human Capability Across the Life Course

How people build, retain, and redeploy capability across education, entry into work, leadership, career transition, longer lives, and increasingly synthetic information environments. The pillar studies both individual agency and the institutional conditions under which people can continue to learn, decide, and contribute.

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Published under this pillar
  • Searchlight 018 · The Verification Gap: the oversight skill nobody is training · July 2026
  • Searchlight 016 · When a chatbot acts as a therapist · July 2026
What replaces the developmental function of entry-level work when AI absorbs routine tasks?
Being scoped Research Brief · Q4 2026
How should institutions support mid-career capability renewal and workforce re-entry?
Being scoped Research Brief · 2027
How do longer working lives change the relationship among education, employment, pensions, and human development, and what protections do older adults need against AI-enabled fraud and manipulation?
Longer-term Horizon Scan · 2027
Pillar III
Planetary Futures
Energy, Climate, Space and Long-Horizon Stewardship

How institutions steward the systems on which long-term human flourishing depends, across climate, energy, infrastructure, the biosphere, and space. The pillar examines decisions whose consequences compound across decades, and whether today's institutions are preserving or foreclosing future possibilities.

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Published under this pillar
  • Searchlight 017 · The pledge is intact; the definitions underneath it are not · July 2026
What energy and grid strategies can support accelerating computational demand without closing off climate and resilience goals?
Being scoped Research Brief · Q4 2026
When does long-horizon ownership produce genuine environmental stewardship rather than better reporting?
In production Searchlight series · 2026
How should governments coordinate around orbital infrastructure, space-based computing, and other dual-use space systems, and which present-day decisions preserve optionality around fusion, climate adaptation, and off-world infrastructure?
Longer-term Horizon Scan · 2027
Pillar IV
Governance & Diplomacy
Networked Governance and Track II Dialogue

How governments, companies, experts, and multilateral institutions coordinate when authority is fragmented and shared problems cross borders faster than formal institutions can respond. The pillar studies networked governance, institutional renewal, and structured dialogue across jurisdictions.

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Published under this pillar
What governance infrastructure supports cross-jurisdictional coordination on technology and AI when no single regulator has authority?
In production Horizon Scan · Q4 2026
How can Track II convenings be structured to produce institutionally consequential outputs rather than commentary?
Being scoped Research Brief, post NYC Salon · 2026
How do institutions translate dialogue into structured agreement at decision-making scale?
Longer-term Research Brief · 2027
On this page

The agenda is the editorial pipeline, made visible.

Most research institutes publish only the outputs. The Institute publishes the inquiries themselves. The discipline is twofold: it forces clarity about which questions the Institute is actually able to address, and it gives readers, patrons, and partners a way to engage with the work before it lands as a finished publication. What appears here is a selection rather than the whole internal pipeline: the questions the Institute treats as current public priorities. Each pillar page carries the fuller set. The agenda updates as inquiries move through scoping, production, and publication, and questions that fail to resolve into publishable form are retired with note rather than allowed to drift.