During Boao Forum Roundtable Discussion 4 on March 29th – The Role of Think Tanks in Decision-making, Martin Jacques (Senior Research Fellow, Department of Politics and International Studies, Cambridge University) talked about three weaknesses of think tanks:

1. Remain short-term in their mentality. Think tanks depend on the amount of exposure to the media. However, media is short-term in their mentality as well.

2. Project funding rarely considers long-term questions. There is only simple project funding.

3. Asian think tanks are top-heavy. This means that ideas do not flow easily between the various levels of a hierarchy and the ideas tend to be predictable.