January 13, 2009 | Read Time: 1 minute
The University of Pennsylvania and Foreign Policy magazine this month produced the first ranking of the world’s think tanks.
Based on a worldwide survey of scholars and other thinkers, the effort examined 5,500 think tanks, many of which depend on support from foundations and wealthy philanthropists, and ranked them by country and other classifications.
The Brookings Institution, in Washington, was ranked the top think tank in America. Brookings, which has a budget of almost $61-million, receives support from some of the nation’s wealthiest grant makers, including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.
These three foundations also support a smaller think tank, the Center for Global Development, which ranked 15th.
David Roodman, a research fellow at the center, which is also in the nation’s capital, writes that he is pleased with his organization’s rank, especially in light of the fact that the center’s budget, $9.8-million, is rather small compared with its peers.
“If our overall score were divided by our budget, we would rank much higher, on perceived productivity,” he writes on the center’s blog.
