Return On Investment
The Pew Charitable Trusts applies a rigorous, analytical approach to improve public policy, inform the public, and invigorate civic life, as these recent accomplishments illustrate.
Improving Public Policy
Honduras details ambitious conservation commitments to coastal wetlands
In January, the government of Honduras committed to coastal wetland conservation, restoration, and management in its latest nationally determined contribution (NDC) to the Paris Agreement. Honduras’ NDC outlines ambitious, science-based targets that include accomplishing the following by 2035: increasing the country’s protected marine coastal areas by 5%, establishing a baseline of its seagrasses, restoring at least 10% of its mangroves, and maintaining or improving the ecological integrity of at least 65% of conservation areas. These commitments are significantly more ambitious than Honduras’ last NDC submission in 2021. Pew’s advancing coastal wetlands conservation project will continue to support Honduras in implementing these targets, including through exploring potential financing opportunities.
New Utah court for high-volume civil cases has bipartisan support
Debt collection and eviction cases dominate the civil court docket, underscoring the need for states to implement more equitable court processes. In March, Utah Governor Spencer Cox (R) signed a bipartisan bill that will create a statewide court dedicated to hearing debt collection and eviction cases. This Collections and Housing Court is intended to provide a more consistent and streamlined approach to managing those cases. Supporters such as the nonprofit Utah Bar Foundation pointed to analyses from Pew’s courts and communities project about the impact of debt and eviction litigation in the state, which highlighted procedural barriers and uneven outcomes. The bill’s passage advances the project’s goal of helping states leverage data to identify and address opportunities for court reform.
From Lab to Legislature: Building a Network of State Science and Technology Policy Fellows
Each year, state lawmakers throughout the United States and its territories make decisions that shape our daily lives, creating policies that address issues in public health, artificial intelligence, transportation and energy infrastructure, agriculture, wildfire resilience, and more.
These issues have become increasingly complex, fast-moving, and hard to navigate. State science and technology policy fellowship programs can help—in an important way. They place scientists, engineers, and medical professionals directly in state legislatures to work alongside elected officials and their staff. These partnerships bring timely, relevant, and impartial scientific and technological information to the heart of policymaking, and they also create pathways to public service careers for the fellows. In states where these programs currently operate, lawmakers report a greater use of data and other types of evidence in decision-making.
To expand this program nationwide, Pew and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation have launched the state science and technology policy fellowship initiative, which will help states build sustainable, nonpartisan science and technology policy fellowship programs. The initiative aims to support the launch or expansion of programs in up to 18 states by 2032. These fellowships will serve states throughout the country, spanning different regions, legislative structures, and policy priorities. Through a 1-to-1 matching fund seeded by the Moore Foundation and managed by Pew, participating states will receive four years of support to deliver immediate, impartial science and technology expertise inside legislatures.
This work builds on over a decade of collaboration and learning. Early leadership by the Moore Foundation helped lay the groundwork for a national community of state science policy fellowships, which expanded significantly in recent years through partnership with the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL). Today, full-time science policy fellows serve legislatures in California, Colorado, Connecticut, Idaho, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, and West Virginia. Fellows in these states receive requests for assistance from legislators’ offices, then work collaboratively with legislators and their staff to provide timely analyses that summarize the status of policy areas and clarify their terms, draft briefings and memos, organize hearings, and translate complex research.
Since 2008, California’s 201 fellows have supported work on over 1,600 bills, briefings, hearings, and bill analyses.
In Missouri, fellows fulfilled 200 research requests over two years, informing more than 150 bills in 2022 and supporting 43% of legislative members—of which 62% were Republicans and 38% were Democrats. Across programs, over 50% of alumni are hired into legislatures or state agencies, and nearly 90% pursue science policy careers.
“Our legislative staff does not have the time or capacity to become experts on all the various topics,” said West Virginia House Speaker Roger Hanshaw (R). “Fellows provide a product on which we can rely [and] easily digest in a fashion that is accessible to our members.”
Discussing his work with fellows, New Jersey state Senator Andrew Zwicker (D) explained, “As scientists, they take a hard problem and break it down into small parts—and this is a helpful foundation of any policy proposal.”
With recent support from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and other philanthropic partners, Pew, the Moore Foundation, and NCSL hope to accelerate a national tipping point, leading to a future in which high-quality, nonpartisan scientific advising becomes a routine part of state and territorial governance.
Pew and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation have launched the state science and technology policy fellowship initiative, which will help states build sustainable, nonpartisan science and technology policy fellowship programs.
Informing the Public
Study ranks religious diversity around the world
Singapore is the world’s most religiously diverse nation as of 2020, followed by Suriname and Taiwan, according to a Pew Research Center study published in February. The analysis ranked 201 countries and territories from zero (a country composed of a single religious group) to 10 (a country with even distributions of all seven groups included in the study). The United States ranks 32nd globally in religious diversity but places first among the world’s 10 most populous countries. Since 2010, the U.S. has become more religiously diverse, largely due to a 14-percentage-point drop in the Christian majority and a corresponding rise in the religiously unaffiliated population.
The least diverse countries are Yemen, Afghanistan, and Somalia, where Muslims make up 99.8% or more of the population. Globally, it is common for national populations to consist primarily of a single religious group: In 194 of the 201 places analyzed, at least 50% of the population belongs to just one religious category. The study was part of the Pew-Templeton Global Religious Futures project, which tracks religious change and its impact globally.
Invigorating Civic Life
Pew data informs Philadelphia mayor, media outlets
Pew continues to provide Philadelphia leaders with data indicating that the city is on track to achieving measurable reductions in homicides. In her Dec. 15, 2025, “State of the City” address, Mayor Cherelle Parker (D) said that Philadelphia is outpacing a national trend toward fewer killings and that residents are feeling safer—citing data from Pew’s analysis “Philadelphia’s Homicides at Historic Lows,” which found that the city’s per capita homicide rates are the lowest they’ve been in more than a decade, as well as a Pew survey, “Pew Poll: Philadelphians Concerned About Public Safety and Financial Well-Being.” The mayor commented, “This isn’t idle rhetoric; this is data from The Pew Charitable Trusts, national experts.” The Philadelphia Inquirer’s coverage of the city’s homicide rates also cited Pew’s analysis and poll. Mayor Parker referenced Pew again in her March 12 budget address, when discussing Philadelphia’s progress.
