Whois & Analysis for urban.org

The Urban Institute is a Washington DC-based think tank that carries out economic and social policy research to "open minds, shape decisions, and offer solutions." The institute receives funding from government contracts, foundations and private donors.

The Urban Institute measures policy effects, compares options, shows which stakeholders get the most and least, tests conventional wisdom, reveals trends, and makes costs, benefits, and risks explicit.

The Urban Institutue is described as a "leading liberal think tank" by the Los Angeles Times.

Social policy is a term which is applied to various areas of policy, usually within a governmental or political setting (such as the welfare state and study of social services).

Economic policy refers to the actions that governments take in the economic field.

It covers the systems for setting levels of taxation, government budgets, the money supply and interest rates as well as the labor market, national ownership, and many other areas of government interventions into the economy.

Research comprises "creative work undertaken on a systematic basis in order to increase the stock of knowledge, including knowledge of humans, culture and society, and the use of this stock of knowledge to devise new applications." It is used to establish or confirm facts, reaffirm the results of previous work, solve new or existing problems, support theorems, or develop new theories.

A research project may also be an expansion on past work in the field.

Research projects can be used to develop further knowledge on a topic, or in the example of a school research project, they can be used to further a student's research prowess to prepare them for future jobs or reports.

To test the validity of instruments, procedures, or experiments, research may replicate elements of prior projects or the project as a whole.

The primary purposes of basic research (as opposed to applied research) are documentation, discovery, interpretation, or the research and development (R&D) of methods and systems for the advancement of human knowledge.

Approaches to research depend on epistemologies, which vary considerably both within and between humanities and sciences.

There are several forms of research: scientific, humanities, artistic, economic, social, business, marketing, practitioner research, life, technological,etc.