Change
Editorial
Last year, everything changed.
Suddenly.
And then, it didn’t.
Slowly.
There is still time for change.
When thinking about our annual review and annual conference we were sure we had to address COVID-19 in some way or another. But we wanted to avoid familiar discussions.
Yes, organisations have had to change. They have adopted new technologies. Offices have gone virtual. Funding has been tight. There have been unprecedented demands for evidence.
Only these are not universal experiences. There are organisations that have failed to change. Some have struggled to adopt new — even old — technologies and have preferred to go back to presential work as soon as it was allowed. For a handful of organisations funding has been amply available — they have taken advantage of funders’ sincere concerns for the field. And in many cases, unprecedented demand for evidence has been more than matched by a rejection of the expert classes and penchant for half-truths, pseudo-science and outright lies.
Change, as always, is more nuanced affair and it is hardly homogenous.
Instead, we settled for the broader issue of change. In 2020 we explored this in our series of online conferences and the 2019/20 Annual Review: technology. We talked about the effects of technological change on think tanks, the policy research context, their agendas, strategies and even on their staff. We discussed how the Black Lives Matter and feminist movements of 2020 changed the way diversity, equity and inclusion were talked about — and addressed — within research organisations. We heard about approaches to promoting change from the perspective of global and national organisations as well as from the point of view of grassroots and social movements.
And we had lively discussions on the changing nature of politics (and the impact that technology is having on it) and the demand this is imposing on think tanks to, among other things, show their ideological cards and take a stand.
Things can go back; change is non-linear. The growing trend of state capture across the world illustrates this perfectly.
Change also presents challenges. In our 2018/19 Annual Review we explored public engagement as an emerging challenge to think tanks and other policy research organisations. Their traditional audiences were rapidly changing and think tanks faced important questions about how best to reach them.
In late 2020 we began to consider ethical concerns involved in promoting evidence-informed change. We talked about ethical dilemmas in research, communication, and partnerships.
The pandemic has ushered unprecedented changes in think tanks’ environments and their business models. It has affected individual thinktankers — derailing their professional careers in some cases and boosting them in others. The pandemic has affected think tanks’ research agendas and funding prospects.
These dilemmas are further influenced by the changes that we had already been experiencing in politics, society and technology.
For instance, how can cash-strapped organisations respond to new demands made by staff with care responsibilities at home? How can think tanks facing increasingly authoritarian governments respond to those same governments’ demands for their services?
Think tanks have to tackle these challenges in a context of immense political and economic uncertainty, not least about funding, and new operational challenges imposed by the pandemic.
We have noted among our colleagues in the field a growing concern for the resilience of existing business models — as well as a desire to understand what really makes organisations resilient; a recognition that formal governance and management structure matter, but are not enough!
We have also invited authors to reflect on how think tanks have responded to changes in the past. Elizabeth Sidiropoulos recounts the roles that SAIIA played before, during and after apartheid in South Africa. Her account reminded me of the roles of think tanks in Chile in the 1980s and 1990s, during and after the Pinochet dictatorship. These stories are enlightening. Faced with authoritarianism, think tanks responded with more dialogue rather than research. And then, with the turning of the tide, they changed tactic.
Keith Burnett draws similar lessons from Chatham House’ centenary:
First, you don’t need a clear model to develop the solution to the problem you are seeking to resolve as long as your goal is solutions-focussed. Second, you need to develop your solutions via trusted collaboration and research. Third, credible research will stand the test of time even if the outputs, methods of communications and types of participants evolve and change — this is inevitable and to be welcomed.
Finally, one element that is largely out of our control is the general speed of change as hastened and forced by world-changing events. This we need to roll with, accept and embrace.
In other words, think tanks evolve, as we discussed in our 2016/17 Annual Review.
If 2020 has not triggered think tanks to think about change more systematically, then we hope our review, annual conference and work in 2021, will. As Hans Gutbrod suggests:
Think tanks, in some ways, are all about change. Not much thinking is needed to defend the status quo. And yet, some think tanks arguably do not think enough about change, and their impact beyond research quality.
Other institutions are facing changes too. Academia, for instance, was already undergoing significant and overdue change; the pandemic accelerated their digital transformation. And questions still remain with regards to the impact that the crisis has had on research systems as a whole. The media, too, has faced years of relentless pressure to change and adapt to new communication channels and expectations from younger audiences. Aidan Muller argues that think tanks and the media share common challenges:
‘Both are having to come to terms with a world in which their hard currency — facts and data — no longer command unanimity.
Both are distrusted by the populist left and the populist right, accused of being vehicles for the establishment.
Both are having to re-examine what their commitment to principles of objectivity, impartiality, and non-partisanship means in a world where fact and truth are no longer absolutes.’
We hope funders will pay attention, too. Crises are opportunities to test their support for think tanks. Are they doing enough to support resilient organisations — capable of fulfilling their roles during the most difficult of times? Will they be able to emerge strengthened by the experience? Simon Maxwell, argues for more funding reserves for think tanks — something that few funders have yet considered.
In mid-2020, at our second online conference, a panel of funders argued for changes in how they funded and supported think tanks. Among other things they called for more flexibility, embracing themselves the values they wished their grantees to embrace, focusing on building resilient organisations, and investing in ideas that promised to rupture the foundations of power and privilege.
Priyanthi Fernando, like many of us, had high hopes when, at first, the pandemic began to rupture those foundations. ‘During the pandemic, feminists and feminist economists came into their own, taking the ruptures as a point of departure and visioning a new world order.’ After a year of anxiety and isolation, however, it seems unlikely that the initial responses to COVID-19 will lead to transformative change.
What then for the future?
Think tanks, like other institutions and their environment, will change. I believe that the think tank function will continue to be relevant but, to deliver it, new alternatives will emerge.
Some may go back to business as usual. Much of what has changed in 2020 has been to our facades. We have learned to communicate differently but business models have remained largely unchanged. And with what now feels like insufficient changes to the foundations of power and privilege, it is unlikely all think tanks will respond themselves.
In the longer term, though, I expect there will be greater diversity in expressions of the label. The large think tanks will continue to thrive as the world remains or continues to grow more unequal. These are the think tanks that complement the dominating policymaking institutions: the Party in China, the state in Germany, the private sector in the US. But many more, much smaller, think tanks will emerge to attempt to substitute weakened institutions: academia, civil society, the media.
The function will also be adopted by other fields: thought leadership platforms; corporations with a mission to shape narratives and agendas; consultancies with spin-off think tanks; NGOs with an increasing focus on systemic change; and even foundations whose own staff have realised that their contribution to society lies beyond the dollars they disburse.
The power that individuals have to command the functions of thinktanking and the opportunities that exist in other fields will, I imagine, prove impossible to resist for new generations of hugely influential gig-thinktankers. They may find it easier to navigate the increasingly complex world that think tanks face.
Finally, I expect a return to a time when think tanks were not bound by bricks and mortar but were instead formed and reformed by the interaction of their members. To a time when the RSA, the oldest think tank still in existence in the Open Think Tank Directory, was the Fellowship. And all it needed was a coffeehouse for its fellows to meet.
Enrique Mendizabal
Founder and Director, OTT
