ISTANBUL

The top 50 US think tanks have received hundreds of millions of dollars from foreign governments, according to a report by the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.

The report, titled Big Ideas and Big Money: Think Tank Funding in America, gives a five-point transparency score to each of the top 50 think tanks in the US based on a scale created by the institute centered on five binary questions.

“Based on this criteria, nine of the top 50 think tanks are fully transparent, while 23 think tanks are partially transparent. Most concerning, the remaining 18 think tanks are ‘dark money’ think tanks, entirely opaque in their funding without revealing donors,” the report said.

The report revealed that between 2019-2023, foreign governments and foreign government-owned entities donated more than $110 million to the top 50 think tanks.

The highest donors were the United Arab Emirates, the UK and Qatar, which contributed $16.7 million, $15.5 million and $9.1 million to US think tanks, respectively.

Out of the think tanks, the Atlantic Council, Brookings Institution and German Marshall Fund received the most money from foreign governments in the timeframe with $20.8 million, $17.1 million and $16.1 million respectively

The report also disclosed that the US government had directly given at least $1.49 billion to American think tanks between 2019-2023, with almost all of it ($1.4 billion) going to the Rand Corporation.

Additionally, since 2019, top Pentagon contractors have contributed more than $34.7 million to the think tanks included in the study.

Out of the think tanks that disclose their donors, 62% received funding from Pentagon contractors, though the real number is likely higher, given that many think tanks publish a donor role but do not list corporate contributions, according to the report.

Eighteen out of the 50 surveyed in the research were labeled as “dark money think tanks” due to them being completely opaque about their donors as, legally, think tanks are not obligated to publicly identify the sources of donations.

However, there have been instances where think tanks accidentally let slip their funding sources.

During an American Enterprise Institute event, the moderator noted that Pentagon contractors fund the think tank by saying “we’d be remiss if we didn’t mention that both Lockheed (Martin) and Northrop (Grumman) provide philanthropic support to AEI. We are grateful for that support,” according to the findings.

This could prove a conflict of interest, according to the report, as some of these dark money think tanks, like AEI, are among the most prominent think tanks testifying in front of Congress. ​​​​​​​

In 2021, Quincy Institute Senior Advisor Eli Clifton reported that less than 30% of think tank-affiliated witnesses before the US House Foreign Affairs Committee fully disclosed their donors.