Polymarket Launches Institute for Academic Research on Prediction Markets
On July 29, 2026, Polymarket announced the launch of the Polymarket Institute to fund independent academic research into prediction markets. The initiative aims to explore how these markets challenge traditional polling and projection models by providing institutional rigor and infrastructure for large-scale analysis. The institute will be led by Kai Brusch as managing director and Brian Jabarian, an economics professor at Carnegie Mellon University, as scientific director. It plans to support academic work through the Polymarket Science Fellowship program, offering $10,000 grants to 12 doctoral researchers in relevant fields. To ensure impartiality, all researchers must sign legal agreements prohibiting trading on prediction markets and require open publication of their findings alongside code repositories.