Think tank: The term denotes a group of people who are paid to do nothing but read, discuss, think, and write, usually to address and redress a matter of vital importance to humanity.

You can think of a think tank as a research university blessed with a complete absence of students and where, as a consequence, none of its professors has to teach---all they have to do is research, research, research.

At last count, the United States had 1,984 think tanks---nearly a third of the world's total. American think tanks are constantly researching solutions to a variety of the world's problems, and then arguing, advocating, and lobbying for policy changes at local, state, and federal levels.

Some think tanks, such as the Brookings Institution or the Heritage Foundation, have become household names and are cited frequently by major news corporations. Others are cited by outside organizations less frequently, or perhaps not at all, but publish their own articles and books for a select---and at times even sizable---audience.

The institutions on this list make up the 50 most influential think tanks in the United States. What makes a think tank influential? One way to gauge the influence of a think tank is to focus on the scholars active in it, their record of publications and other scholarly achievements, and how deeply these have affected the culture's climate of opinion.

Our approach in ranking think tanks takes a different tack. As a business enterprise ourselves, we regard think tanks as principally in the business of selling their ideas. In this age of the Internet, in which every think tank has a website, we therefore can regard think tanks as in the business of search engine marketing, i.e., as attempting to market their ideas over the Internet and especially through their website. 

Enter the tools that online businesses, like ours, use to assess how well websites and their pages are ranking with the search engines (we use several such tools, notably SEMrush.com). At TheBestSchools.org, we need these tools to determine how well we are doing in attracting and holding visitor traffic---in other words, to determine how influential our website is.

Accordingly, in choosing and ranking the think tanks on this list, we employed the following criteria, which look less at the intrinsic merit of a think tank and its intellectual program as at its pragmatic or "cash value" (as the philosopher William James would have put it):

• The popularity of a think tank's official website, ranked against all other websites, as determined by the average number of monthly visitors (specifically, organic search traffic), number of keywords/phrases for which the site ranks, and the monetary value of the traffic as gauged by those keywords. All these numbers come from SEMrush, and this is our master criterion.
• Average yearly revenue (in most cases, over the course of five years) as reported by the think tanks. As non-profit organizations, think-tanks must make their revenue numbers available to the public; the greater its revenue, the more influential the think tank---other things being equal.
• The average number of printed media references per year by outside organizations (according to fair.org and Nexis).
• The number of categories in which a think tank was ranked by the University of Pennsylvania (Lauder Institute) in its 2014 Global Go To Think Tank Index. This report does not reflect intrinsic intellectual performance or academic accomplishment per se. Rather, it is based on the perceptions of hundreds of journalists, policymakers, and think tank employees.

The Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs was established in 1973 with the intent of analyzing arms control and nuclear threat reduction. Thanks to a sizable donation by the Ford Foundation, Belfer is now a permanent research center located at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, and has expanded to include research in the subjects of science, technology, public policy, the environment, and natural resources. Today, Belfer works towards a dual mission of “preparing future generations of leaders,” and “providing leadership in advancing policy-relevant knowledge about the most important challenges of ... security and .... other critical issues.”

The Earth Institute was founded in 1995 at Columbia University in New York. With the belief that currently existing science and technology could be applied to improve the conditions of world populations, the Institute focuses on addressing important global issues such as sustainable development and the needs of the world's poor. The Institute is composed of 18 separate units, all of which conduct their own research and writing. These include the Center for Rivers and Estuaries, the Earth Engineering Center, the Urban Design Lab, and the International Research Institute for Climate and Society, among others. The Institute also regularly partners with similar institutions in order to specifically target various topics. Finally, the Institute maintains the popular blog “State of the Planet.”

Founded in 1973, the Heritage Foundation rose to prominence during the Reagan administration and the Conservative Movement of the 1980s. In fact, many of Reagan's policies drew significantly from the “Mandate for Leadership,” Heritage's official policy study. Since then, Heritage has solidified itself as one of the most influential Conservative organizations in the United States. Consistent with its interest in economic principles, Heritage tracks the yearly growth of federal spending, revenue, debt and deficits, and entitlement programs, which it then publishes as the Budget Chart Book and distributes free to the public. Heritage also publishes a number of political theory books, and partners with the Wall Street Journal each year to publish the Annual Index of Economic Freedom. Heritage's current Board of Trustees reads like a “Who's Who” of the new Conservative movement, and includes such names as Larry P. Arnn (President of Hillsdale College), Jim DeMint (former Senator and now President of Heritage), and Steve Forbes (President and CEO of Forbes).

With headquarters in New York and offices in 18 major cities around the world (including Washington, DC), Human Rights Watch is a powerful organization that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. The organization was originally founded in 1978 in order to monitor the Soviet Union's compliance with the Helsinki Accords, but has since expanded to include an Americas Watch, an Asia Watch, an Africa Watch, and a Middle East Watch. Each year, Human Rights Watch publishes hundreds of reports on violations of international human rights norms in an effort to draw attention to abuses and pressure governments to reform. In recent years, the organization has been the subject of a number of controversies regarding its association with polarizing philanthropist George Soros, and accusations that it is too influenced by the agendas of US foreign policy.

Founded in 1948, the Kaiser Family Foundation focuses on major healthcare issues in the US and, to a lesser extent, the world. Over the years, it has become a must-read for healthcare devotees and a quality non-partisan source for up-to-date and accurate information on health policy. The Foundation regularly releases facts, polls, and analyses that are in turn used by the media, policymakers, the healthcare community, and the general public. Specific research programs include disparities policy, global health policy, health costs, health reform, HIV/AIDS, Medicaid, Medicare, private insurance, the uninsured, and women's health policy. Despite an original association, the Foundation is no longer affiliated with Kaiser Permanente or Kaiser Industries.

With offices in New York City and Washington, DC, the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) is considered by some to be the most influential foreign-policy think tank in the United States. Including names like Fareed Zakaria, Colin Powell, Tom Brokaw, and Madeleine Albright, CFR's impressive membership list has included senior politicians, more than a dozen Secretaries of State, CIA directors, bankers, lawyers, professors, and prominent media figures. CFR is perhaps best known by the general public as the publisher of the widely read bi-monthly journal Foreign Affairs. In policy circles, however, CFR is known for its “David Rockefeller Studies Program,” which often succeeds in influencing foreign policy by making official recommendations to the President and diplomatic community, testifying before Congress, speaking with the media, and publishing on issues of foreign policy.

The Brookings Institution boasts two major claims when it comes to think tanks: it was likely the first think tank to be founded in the United States, and its studies are the most widely cited by the media. Since its foundation in 1916, Brookings has influenced and contributed to the creation of such historic phenomena as the United Nations, the Marshall Plan, the Congressional Budget Office, and various policies of deregulation, broad-based tax reform, welfare reform, and foreign aid. Despite being founded as a Progressive institution, Brookings states that its scholars “represent diverse points of view.” Consistent with this claim is the fact that Brookings is referenced by Conservative politicians almost as frequently as it is by those who are Liberal. To keep up with its widespread influence, Brookings conducts research and education in a number of social sciences, including economics, metropolitan policy, governance, foreign policy, and global economy and development.

Founded in 1974, Cato Institute moved to Washington, DC, in 1981 in an attempt to become more influential. And become influential it has! Today, Cato is a multi-billion, multi-issue organization consisting of more than 200 faculty and staff members. Named after Cato's Letters, a series of pamphlets published in England in the 1720s which helped lay the philosophical foundation for the American Revolution, Cato's mission is “to broaden the parameters of public policy debate to allow consideration of the traditional American principles of limited government, individual liberty, free markets, and peace.” To achieve this mission, Cato publishes numerous policy studies, briefs, books, and periodicals, including the peer-reviewed Cato Journal. It also maintains popular websites such as Libertarianism.org, Cato-unbound.org, Overlawyered.com, and Policemisconduct.net.

Ludwig von Mises Institute is a Libertarian academic think tank that specializes in researching and promoting Classical Liberal viewpoints about subjects such as economics, philosophy, and political economy. Named for the famous Austrian School economist, the Institute's stated mission is to promote “the Misesian tradition of thought through the defense of the market economy, private property, sound money, and peaceful international relations, while opposing government intervention.” As such it has become, perhaps more than any other institution on this list, the darling of myriad Young Conservative groups. 

The Ludwig von Mises Institute resists being labeled as "conservative" by any standard. Specifically, their foreign policy views, their position on the US Constitution, and their views on social policy are all either non-conservative or anti-conservative. The only place where conservatives may overlap with them is in market economics, but only in America is that considered to be a "conservative" position. 

The Institute publishes a large number of books, journal articles, and online articles each year, including the Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics and the Mises Review.

Founded in 1938, the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) seeks to “defend the principles and improve the institutions of American freedom and democratic capitalism” through “limited government, private enterprise, individual liberty and responsibility, vigilant and effective defense and foreign policies, political accountability, and open debate.” In recent years, AEI has become the most prominent think tank associated with Neo-Conservatism, and has succeeded in placing its members in influential government positions---a fact which has made it highly controversial. In fact, more than 20 AEI scholars and fellows served in posts in the George W. Bush administration.

WE WILL SKIP A FEW AND GO TO:

The Project for the New American Century (PNAC) was a neoconservative[1][2][3] think tank based in Washington, D.C. that focused on United States foreign policy. It was established as a non-profit educational organization in 1997, and founded by William Kristol and Robert Kagan.[4][5] PNAC's stated goal was "to promote American global leadership."[6] The organization stated that "American leadership is good both for America and for the world," and sought to build support for "a Reaganite policy of military strength and moral clarity."[7]

Of the twenty-five people who signed PNAC's founding statement of principles, ten went on to serve in the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush, including Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Paul Wolfowitz.[8][9][10][11] Observers such as Irwin Stelzer and Dave Grondin have suggested that the PNAC played a key role in shaping the foreign policy of the Bush Administration, particularly in building support for the Iraq War.[12][13][14][15] Academics such as Inderjeet Parmar, Phillip Hammond, and Donald E. Abelson have said PNAC's influence on the George W. Bush administration has been exaggerated.[16][17][18]

The Project for the New American Century ceased to function in 2006;[19] it was replaced by a new think-tank named the Foreign Policy Initiative, co-founded by Kristol and Kagan in 2009. The Foreign Policy Initiative was dissolved in 2017.

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https://thebestschools.org/magazine/most-influential-think-tanks/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_Century

AS WE KNOW THE PRECURSER OF THESE THINK TANKS WAS THE ROUND TABLE MOVEMENT.... THAT PREACHED THE "GOSPEL" OF DILKE, FISKE AND HAWKINS ANGLO-SAXONISM....

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UNDERSTAND THAT THE CORE OF THE THINKING IN THE US THINK TANKS is THE CONQUEST OF THE WORLD, ESPECIALLY THE HEARTLAND.

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FREE JULIAN ASSANGE NOW............