I received a letter today from John Roskam, executive director of the Institute of Public Affairs, outlining the organisation’s recent successes (and it has indeed flourished under his leadership).

He included with the letter what I think is the first ever survey of think-tank name recognition. Though as John points out in the letter the rather generic name of the IPA may cause its numbers to be overstated a little (there are so many institutes around that I have trouble keeping track of them myself) I’m still impressed by the result.

Even the 21% for the Grattan Institute is pretty good, given that it is relatively new.

There was no question about my employer the Centre for Independent Studies, though in my experience people frequently get think-tanks confused. I regularly get people who are under the impression that I work for the IPA or even occasionally Gerard Henderson’s Sydney Institute.