The National Academies attempt to obtain authoritative, objective, and scientifically balanced answers to difficult questions of national importance. Top scientists, engineers, health professionals, and other experts (not limited to those in academies membership) are enlisted to address the scientific and technical aspects of some of society's problems. These experts are volunteers who serve on study committees that are convened to answer specific sets of questions. All committee members serve without pay. NASEM does not perform original research; rather it provides independent advice. Federal agencies are the primary financial sponsors of the Academies' work; additional studies are funded by state agencies, foundations, other private sponsors, and the National Academies endowment. The external sponsors have no control over the conduct or results of a study, once the statement of task and budget are finalized. Study committees gather information from many sources in public meetings but deliberate in private in order to avoid political, special interest, and sponsor influence. All reports go through an extensive external review facilitated by the internal Report Review Committee (also consisting of members from the NAS, NAE, and NAM). Through this study process, the National Academies produce around 200 reports each year. Recent reports addressed the
obesity epidemic, the use of forensics in the courtroom,
invasive plants, pollinator collapse,
underage drinking, the
Hubble Space Telescope,
vaccine safety, the
hydrogen economy, transportation safety,
climate change, and
homeland security. Many reports influence policy decisions; some are instrumental in enabling new research programs; others provide independent program reviews. The
National Academies Press is the publisher for the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, and makes its publications available for free online reading. The full book PDFs have been available for free download since 2011. The National Academies also provide credentialed witnesses who speak before government bodies on important issues. For example, a committee chair may speak on rising mortality rates in working adults in the US to a Senate Subcommittee on Primary Health and Retirement Security, Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions.
Reports Alcohol and health In 2025, the National Academies issued their consensus study report
Review of Evidence on Alcohol and Health to inform the 2025–2030
Dietary Guidelines for Americans. The committee conducted systematic reviews of scientific literature published to evaluate the relationship between alcohol consumption, including moderate alcohol consumption (defined as one drink per day for women and two for men), and eight specific health outcomes. To attempt to ensure the accuracy of these reviews, the report specifically attempted to account for "abstainer" and "sick quitter" biases by excluding studies that grouped former drinkers who may have quit due to health issues with lifelong non-drinkers. The committee's findings varied in certainty across different health categories. It concluded with moderate certainty that moderate alcohol consumption is associated with lower all-cause mortality and a lower risk of cardiovascular mortality compared to never consuming alcohol. Conversely, the report found with moderate certainty that moderate intake is associated with an increased risk of breast cancer in females. For other conditions, such as colorectal cancer and nonfatal heart attacks, the evidence reached only a "low" level of certainty. In several areas, including neurocognition and weight change, the committee determined that no definitive conclusions could be drawn due to inconsistent data and the lack of standardized reporting in alcohol research. In 2013, the NRC published the report
Abrupt Impacts of Climate Change: Anticipating Surprises, which provided an updated look at the issue of
abrupt climate change and its potential impacts. This study differed from previous treatments of abrupt changes by focusing on abrupt climate changes and also abrupt climate impacts that have the potential to severely affect the physical climate system, natural systems, or human systems, often affecting multiple interconnected areas of concern.
Sexual assault In 2013, the NRC published the report
Estimating the Incidence of Rape and Sexual Assault, which pointed out that approximately 80 percent of
sexual assaults go unreported to law enforcement. The report recommends that the
National Crime Victimization Survey adopt new approaches to interviews of rape victims, including changing the wording of questions. In an article about the report, Amber Stevenson, clinical supervisor and therapist at the Nashville Sexual Assault Center, said that
victim-blaming was the main issue preventing victims from coming forward: As long as we as a community continue to make victim-blaming statements, such as, "She put herself in this situation,"..."She didn't fight back, she must have wanted it," we will continue to see rapes go unreported ... We have to stop blaming the victim. The conversation needs to shift to the person who chose to rape.
Integrity in research The 1992 report,
Responsible Science: Ensuring the Integrity of the Research Process was updated in 2017 by the report,
Fostering Integrity in Research: ... as experience has accumulated with various forms of research misconduct, detrimental research practices, and other forms of misconduct, as subsequent empirical research has revealed more about the nature of scientific misconduct, and because technological and social changes have altered the environment in which science is conducted, it is clear that the framework established more than two decades ago needs to be updated. One of the report's main concerns is that a growing percentage of recently published research turns out to be not reproducible due in part to inadequate support of standards of transparency in many fields as well as to various other detrimental research practices. ==Other programs==