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When you ask think tanks about their national sector, you’re likely to get a pretty gloomy answer. Many will say it’s challenging to operate in their country, and most will predict that funding will become tighter, leading to sector stagnation. But the deeper data tells a different story, suggesting that think tanks are being far too pessimistic. Might the global think tank sector, while indeed facing some challenges, be in relatively good health?
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One way to resist pessimism is to break down the situation into manageable components. Even though only 31% of think tanks expect the sector to grow in their country, some regions are notably more optimistic. In Asia, 43% expect growth, as do 56% in Africa. Of course, separating those regions only makes the rest of the world seem drearier, leaving Europe, Oceania, and the Americas on just 20%. Regional analysis also doesn’t help for all issues – worldwide, 42% of think tanks say it’s ‘Hard’ or ‘Very Hard’ to operate in their country, with only 11% calling it easy, and this is a more global sentiment. African think tanks were most likely to report ease of operations, but only at 29%, which is a more positive result, albeit not by much. Similarly, 54% of think tanks expect funding conditions to deteriorate in the next year, a common concern across all regions.
But there’s another way to question this pessimistic narrative, and that’s to ask a slightly different question. Instead of asking think tanks about their sectoral expectations, we can ask them their individual expectations, and aggregate them. If all perceptions were accurate, you would expect that any one think tank’s perception of the sector would match the average of self-perceptions – they should describe the same data. That isn’t what’s happening. Just 31% of think tanks expect the sector to grow, but 61% of think tanks expect themselves to grow. The difference is enormous, and consistent across all regions and income levels. Even regions that reported high sectoral expectations showed a discrepancy—65% in Asia and a massive 83% in Africa expected to grow.
The same effect occurs when think tanks are asked not generally how hard it is to operate a think tank in their country, but how hard they find it—42% drops to 24%, with most describing a moderate difficulty. The swing is most dramatic in Latin America, with 4% describing their country as ‘Easy’ or ‘Very Easy’ to operate in, but 28% reporting their own operations as such. Likewise, despite 54% predicting worse funding conditions next year, only 35% report their own funding declining. Think tanks are suffering from a kind of comparative optimism—everyone thinks they are outperforming the average. This phenomenon occurs with some frequency across many areas of life and business – for instance, most drivers believe themselves to be better than the average driver.
It’s worth mentioning that not all think tanks displayed comparative optimism over funding. Organisations in low- and lower-middle-income countries had expectations for next year that matched the previous year’s results (39% reporting decreases, 40% expecting unfavourable conditions). But in high- and upper-middle-income countries, respondents tended to think the sector was facing a much gloomier condition, with 60% expecting the following year’s funding environment to be unfavourable. In comparison, only 33% reported funding decreases in the past year. Nor can this be explained by think tanks anticipating a specific reason for a decline in funding; they were not expecting any political deterioration, and 85% were mostly unaffected by the termination of the US Agency for International Development.
How can we explain such a difference in perspective?
Despite the phenomenon’s commonality, comparative optimism among think tanks demands a more direct explanation. Perhaps the sectoral expectations are accurate, but the average of individual expectations is distorted by sampling error – i.e. successful think tanks are more likely to respond to a survey. This is probably partly true, but it cannot account for the staggering scale of the discrepancy. This leaves two more interesting options: think tanks may be baselessly optimistic about their own performance, or there may be a deep, unfounded pessimism about the sector.
The answer is undoubtedly a mix of both. Illusory superiority is a common cognitive bias, making organisations overestimate their relative abilities. For a speculative question like growth, respondents are likely to be biased towards optimism and consider their well-rehearsed plans for success, rather than the unknown and myriad difficulties that may arise. This suggests think tanks are being too optimistic. However, respondents also know far more about their own operations than those of their competitors; we can reasonably expect their self-assessments to be more accurate than their estimates for the sector. Moreover, not all the self-assessments were so speculative—think tanks will have even more relevant accuracy about their operations over the past year, and still more over their funding trend, which they can presumably report objectively. The strength of the trend in these areas implies that think tanks are downplaying their sector, rather than promoting themselves.
What is causing such pessimism?
Funding is a serious issue, particularly in certain regions; worrying about funding can create a pervasive sense of difficulty. But this explanation struggles to account for why, in high-income countries not facing a funding squeeze, pessimism remains so high. Politics is another worry. 46% of think tanks describe recent political conditions as unfavourable, with only 16% finding them conducive to their work. This was broadly similar globally, although think tanks in Asia and Africa were noticeably more likely to report conditions as favourable, and those in the Americas were particularly unhappy.
Nevertheless, respondents mostly thought they could work independently, with 64% reporting complete or mostly complete freedom of research, though Asia was a notable outlier at 47%. 36% were affected ‘significantly’ by political polarisation, disrupting how they research, collaborate, and fund themselves. Once again, North and South America were particularly hit, with 52% reporting serious effects. Certain think tanks were also affected by the USAID cuts, with 35% of those in Asia, Africa, and Latin America reporting substantial impacts, which may spill over into the general perception of the sector.
But despite these headwinds, the think tank sector has a lot of life left in it. Many think tanks are expecting to expand, and many are innovating and updating, with 67% using Artificial Intelligence in their work, primarily to assist with research and communications. That includes low- and lower-middle-income countries, where the rate of use is 61%. And most importantly, the core of the think tank sector remains strong—70% report that they have directly contributed to a specific public policy in the last 5 years. This remarkably high figure is consistent mainly across regions and income levels. For all the gloomy feelings, the picture for think tanks is tentatively optimistic.
