INFER is a collective intelligence program advancing the forecasting capability of the U.S. government.

Led by RAND, INFER uses crowdsourced forecasting to generate diverse, outside signals on issues related to national security, science, and technology, to aid government policy and decisionmakers.

Learn more about us

Welcome to INFER’s public forecasting community

New to INFER?

Join Now

Explore INFER’s public forecasting community

Experience the benefits of being a forecaster

  • Improve critical reasoning and judgment

  • Access forecasting training

  • Get feedback on individual performance

  • Participate in tournaments for exclusive rewards

  • Attend virtual events with subject matter experts

  • Network with other forecasters

  • Be at the vanguard of forecasting efforts in government

“Forecasting forces me to assess my own biases going into an issue. I’m also constantly surprised by the ways the other forecasters think about factors going into their forecasts -- it is so easy to get trapped in our epistemic bubbles and crowd forecasting helps reorient our thinking.”

— Fiona Kastel, International Initiative for Impact Evaluation ("3ie")

“I learn more than I ever thought I would about some of the most important issues facing the U.S., while also influencing decisions on the same topics.”

— Anthony Cordetti, Cambridge Associates

Crowdsourced forecasting is a process that enables a large group of people to combine their individual forecasts into a “crowd” or “consensus” forecast that often generates a more accurate forecast than individual experts.

INFER gets requests from policymakers and analysts about what they need to understand about the future. We then agree on a question that best represents what they want to know. From there, our team goes through a process of “decomposing” that broad question into the individual questions you see on INFER.

Learn more about our decomposition process.

INFER creates regular reports of forecasting outputs for analysts and policymakers to use in their analysis and decisionmaking process. These may come in the form of quarterly updates, or alerts about notable movement in the consensus forecasts.

  • See examples of these reports.

  • Watch this brief video to see how INFER’s crowd insights serve as a “warning signal” to bolster national security and intelligence.

INFER is led by the non-profit RAND with support from Cultivate Labs.

INFER supports U.S. policymakers in governmental organizations such as the Intelligence Community, the Department of Defense, and the Department of State among others.

By leveraging the power of the crowd, the goal of INFER is to provide early warning and a more diverse perspective about the future to bolster the national security and intelligence of the U.S. and its allies.

If you are a government decisionmaker or analyst interested in working with INFER on a strategic question or issue, or have a community of people who would be interested in making forecasts, contact us at
[email protected].

Files
Tip: Mention someone by typing @username