AEI’s Mission

AEI’s Organization and Purposes

The American Enterprise Institute is a community of scholars and supporters committed to expanding liberty, increasing individual opportunity and strengthening free enterprise. AEI pursues these unchanging ideals through independent thinking, open debate, reasoned argument, facts and the highest standards of research and exposition. Without regard for politics or prevailing fashion, we dedicate our work to a more prosperous, safer and more democratic nation and world.

AEI is a private, nonpartisan, not-for-profit institution dedicated to research and education on issues of government, politics, economics and social welfare. Founded in 1943, AEI is home to some of America’s most accomplished public policy experts. AEI’s purpose is to serve leaders and the public through research and education on the most important issues of the day. AEI research is conducted through six primary research divisions: Economics, Foreign and Defense Policy, Politics and Public Opinion, Education, Health,Energy and the Environment and Social and Culture. It also works through several specialized outlets, such as the National Research Initiative (which sponsors research by university-based scholars), the AEI Press, the Enterprise Blog and The American, AEI’s online magazine.

Approximately 185 people work at AEI’s headquarters in Washington, D.C. In addition, about 50 adjunct scholars and fellows, mainly at research universities around the United States, conduct research for AEI and participate in its conferences. In all our endeavors, AEI trustees, scholars and fellows, and officers and staff are responsible for maintaining the highest standards of integrity, intellectual rigor and excellence—and for sustaining AEI’s founding commitment to open inquiry, lucid exposition, vigorous debate and continuous improvement in the institutions of American liberty.