AEI has long served as a bridge between academia on the one hand and government and the business community on the other. Particularly through its publications and conferences, the Institute has sought to make the best academic research with policy implications accessible to those in government and industry.

In 2002, AEI greatly expanded those efforts by initiating a new program to support, publish, and disseminate research by university-based academics and other students of public policy, social welfare, and politics. With the National Research Initiative (NRI), AEI has made a major commitment to assisting university-based academics and, where appropriate, other intellectuals, journalists, researchers, and freelance authors. The NRI aims to increase the volume, visibility, and influence of top-rate policy research in practical political debate. The program supports research on a wide range of issues, such as tax, entitlement, and fiscal policy; government regulation; education; social welfare; health care; domestic security; the legal system; and political institutions. Major activities include commissioning books and monographs based on proposals submitted to AEI; evaluating noncommissioned research submitted to AEI; organizing seminars, conferences, and lectures for the presentation of commissioned research; editing, publishing, and promotion of finished work; and sponsoring visiting fellowships at AEI.

Each month in the academic year, AEI's Bradley Lecture Series brings an important scholar or writer to AEI. Lecturers in 2002 included Peter Berkowitz of the George Mason University School of Law, Richard A. Epstein and Philip A. Hamburger of the University of Chicago Law School, John Gray of the London School of Economics, Nelson W. Polsby of the University of California at Berkeley, and Lionel Tiger of Rutgers University.

AEI internships provide undergraduate and graduate students with an opportunity to work with renowned scholars and to apply academic learning to public policy issues. In the past year, the Institute has employed 126 interns, drawn from fifty-five colleges and universities and eight countries.

AEI maintains a thirteen-member Council of Academic Advisers, led by political scientist James Q. Wilson. The council advises AEI's president on the Institute's research agenda, publications, and appointments, and each year it selects the recipient of the Francis Boyer Award. In addition, nearly one hundred policy experts at universities across the United States are affiliated with AEI as adjunct scholars.