About INFER
INFER (INtegrated Forecasting and Estimates of Risk) uses crowdsourced forecasting to generate early warning and signals about the complex future that policy and decision-makers must act upon. It involves an ecosystem of forecasting platforms that aggregate the diverse perspectives of a global community inside and outside the U.S. Government.
Mission
Advance the forecasting capability of the U.S. Government through collective intelligence solutions to bolster national security, intelligence analysis, and resource allocation decisions.
Goals
INFER’s strategic goals are focused on delivering impact in line with our mission:
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Prepare government stakeholders to identify, decompose, and prioritize the high-risk, high-impact issues of the future they need to understand and monitor.
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Generate a more precise and nuanced rendering of the future through aggregated probabilistic assessments and rationales.
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Bring a diverse, outside perspective to government decision-making that can improve bias and minimize blind spots.
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Build a forecasting ecosystem that brings rigor to - and is easily integrated into - the process of intelligence analysis.
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Create a track record for forecasting and provide performance feedback, thus improving individual and collective forecasting capability that benefits society.
Solutions We Work On
INFER’s forecasting ecosystem is designed to support government stakeholders in three primary areas.
Early warnings for national security
Use forecasting insights to identify early indicators of threats and influential events.
Risk assessment and evaluation
Understand the probability of risk posed to missions, programs, or strategy.
Resource allocation and prioritization
Get signals about the future landscape that directly impacts resource decisions and policy.
The INFER Team
INFER is run by the University of Maryland’s Applied Research Laboratory for Intelligence and Security (ARLIS) in partnership with Cultivate Labs. It is funded by a grant from Open Philanthropy.
About ARLIS
ARLIS at the University of Maryland is one of 14 U.S. Department of Defense University Affiliated Research Centers (UARCs). ARLIS builds robust analysis in the "human domain,” focusing on three research areas: Human and Sociotechnical Systems; AI, Autonomy, and Augmentation; and Advanced Computing and Emerging Technologies.
About Cultivate Labs
Cultivate Labs strives to bring more rigor and diverse perspectives to decision and policy-making processes in large organizations by leveraging the process and insights of crowdsourced forecasting. Cultivate's products and services are used by many governments, Fortune 500 companies, non-profits, and think tanks around the world.
Contact Us
Learn more about how you can work with INFER. We support U.S. policymakers in elements of the Intelligence Community, Department of Defense, State Department and other Departments throughout government.
Learn More