Institute for Public Policy & Democratic Thought
Independent research for an open society.
The Russell Project is a research institute in public policy and democratic thought, based in Buenos Aires and working across Latin America. We produce evidence, policy proposals and public debate on the institutional conditions of development and democratic life. We answer to no party, government or company: our conclusions are published in full, with open data and code.
How we work
01
Verifiable independence
Independence is not declared: it is demonstrated by publishing who funds us, how much and on what terms.
02
Reproducible evidence
If a conclusion cannot be reproduced from the data we publish, it is not a conclusion of ours.
03
Costed proposals
Every recommendation comes with its estimated fiscal cost and the body that would have to implement it.
04
Public argument
Empirical research and normative argument need each other. We publish both.
Methodology
We work to a simple rule: every empirical claim we publish must be reproducible by a third party. Each report is accompanied by its data, its codebook and the code that produces every table and figure. Where a source cannot be published for legal reasons, we say so explicitly and describe the access procedure.
Long-form research goes through internal review and at least one external reviewer from outside the institute. Disagreements between reviewers are documented in the text itself rather than resolved privately. No conclusion is modified at a funder's request; were that to happen, the publication would be withdrawn and the reason made public.
We distinguish clearly between what the evidence shows, what we infer from it and what we recommend. All three appear in separate sections with different declared degrees of confidence.
Transparency and funding
The Russell Project is funded by philanthropic foundations, individual contributions and research contracts with public bodies and international organisations. We publish an annual breakdown of income by source and the share each funder represents of the total budget.
We do not accept funding conditional on results, nor contracts whose object is the defence of a predetermined position. No single funder may represent more than fifteen per cent of the annual budget. Researchers declare relevant interests at the foot of each publication.
Licences and reuse
All site content is published under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence, except photographs, whose rights belong to their authors. Data and code are distributed under open licences and archived with a persistent identifier.
Contact
Institutional enquiries: contacto@russellproject.org. For press enquiries and interview requests write to press@russellproject.org, stating outlet and deadline. We answer requests for comment same-day when the subject falls within an area in which we have published.
Work with us
We recruit researchers through open competitions with an external panel, advertised in this section and across the region's academic networks. We run a six-month visiting fellowship programme and an annual residency in political essay.