Population Research Center

The RAND Population Research Center (PRC) is dedicated to the scientific advancement of population studies in a period when demographic changes are creating especially complex theoretical and public policy issues. Its purpose is to provide a supportive setting in which a community of scholars can pursue population studies with the resources and facilities to produce the highest quality work.

Given the diverse disciplinary training and research interests of the PRC staff, their demographic research considers not only traditional dimensions of populations, such as age, gender and race-ethnicity, but also physical and mental health status, cognitive ability, and economic status. Within this perspective, the Center’s research agenda is characterized by its focus on three interrelated areas of demographic and economic research and a commitment to advancing the collection of high-quality micro-data on individuals, families, and communities.

Pathways into Program

Founded in 1970 as one of the eight graduate programs created to train future leaders in public policy, the Pardee Rand Graduate School is the largest public policy Ph.D. program in the nation. It is comprised of an interdisciplinary core curriculum, optional analytic concentration, policy specialization, on-the-job training, and a policy-relevant dissertation. There is both a pre-application and application available on the RAND Corporation website.