Information Technology & Innovation foundation ITIF
As technological innovation transforms the global economy and society, policymakers often lack the specialized knowledge and expert perspective necessary to evaluate and respond to fast-moving issues and circumstances. What should they do to capitalize on new opportunities, overcome challenges, and avoid potential pitfalls? The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) exists to provide answers and point the way forward.
Founded in 2006, ITIF is an independent 501(c)(3) nonprofit, nonpartisan research and educational institute—a think tank. Its mission is to formulate, evaluate, and promote policy solutions that accelerate innovation and boost productivity to spur growth, opportunity, and progress. ITIF’s goal is to provide policymakers around the world with high-quality information, analysis, and recommendations they can trust. To that end, ITIF adheres to a high standard of research integrity with an internal code of ethics grounded in analytical rigor, policy pragmatism, and independence from external direction or bias.
Focus
ITIF focuses on a host of critical issues at the intersection of technological innovation and public policy—including economic issues related to innovation, competitiveness, trade, and globalization; and technology-related issues in the areas of information technology and data, broadband telecommunications, advanced manufacturing, life sciences, agricultural biotechnology, and clean energy. (Read more about ITIF’s policy goals and values.)
Ongoing research programs and educational activities include:
- Setting the policy agenda on technology, innovation, and global competition issues by producing original research reports and analytical commentary;
- Shaping public debate by hosting events, giving speeches and presentations, providing official testimony, publishing op-eds, and serving as expert issue analysts in the news media; and
- Advising policymakers through direct interaction in Washington, D.C., and other state, national, and regional capitals around the world.
On the strength and influence of this work, the University of Pennsylvania has ranked ITIF as the world’s leading think tank for science and technology policy, and one of the top 27 U.S. think tanks overall.
Expertise
ITIF is led by its president and founder, Robert D. Atkinson, an internationally recognized policy scholar and widely published author whom The New Republic has named one of the “three most important thinkers about innovation,” Washingtonian Magazine has called a “Tech Titan,” and Government Technology Magazine has judged to be one of the 25 top “Doers, Dreamers and Drivers of Information Technology.” Under Atkinson, ITIF’s team of policy analysts and fellows includes authors and recognized experts in the fields of economics, tax policy, trade, telecommunications, privacy, cybersecurity, and life sciences, among many others.
ITIF is home to the highly regarded Center for Data Innovation, which develops and promotes policy ideas to capitalize on the tremendous economic and social benefits that data-driven innovation can offer. ITIF also launched—and spearheads—the Global Trade and Innovation Policy Alliance, an international network of think tanks that conduct evidence-based research into policies that can foster greater trade liberalization, curb “innovation mercantilism,” and encourage governments to play proactive roles in spurring innovation and productivity.