AEI has hired a number of impressive new scholars in recent months, continuing an effort to celebrate the competition of ideas through spirited debate that began more than 50 years ago.

In 1968, AEI launched a computerized retrieval service to identify experts in different policy areas. The AEI Talent Bank served as a valuable source of expertise as AEI contracted research and study projects. The Talent Bank service was also available at no cost to government and nongovernmental institutions interested in conducting study projects or hiring experts. Such academic luminaries as Milton Friedman and Ronald Coase, who served on the advisory board of AEI at that time, provided advice on the project. 

To find these experts, AEI wrote a letter to friends of the Institute around the country asking them to cast a wide net and sponsor someone for inclusion in the Talent Bank. Sponsors were told to look especially for recent degree candidates or young “up-and-comers” who had shown interest and competence in public policy matters. By 1971, the Talent Bank had grown to 172 people from Harvard, 130 from the University of Chicago, 113 from Columbia, 63 from Yale, and 53 from the University of Michigan. AEI’s reputation in Washington was growing, and in 1971, the Institute hired its first resident scholars. They were the economists Gottfried Haberlar and William Fellner, and Robert Pranger, who was a scholar in foreign policy, and incidentally, the father of Melissa Pranger who has just joined AEI as Book Publicist and Editorial Specialist.

In 1981, the Heritage Foundation published its first Mandate for Leadership, an action plan for the incoming Reagan administration. Heritage included their own talent bank, a list of individuals who could hit the ground running to serve the new administration.

As administrations change and priorities on Capitol Hill shift, AEI scholars’ dedication to the highest academic standards, their love of spirited debate, and their passion for making Americans’ lives better remain constant.

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