Polymarket launches research institute to study the future of prediction markets: Report
Key Takeaways
- •Polymarket is creating the Polymarket Institute to fund independent academic research on prediction markets.
- •Kai Brusch will serve as managing director, and Brian Jabarian will act as scientific director without personal compensation.
- •The institute will launch a one-year fellowship program for doctoral researchers, with 12 first-cohort fellows each receiving a $10,000 grant.
- •Applications for the Polymarket Science Fellowship are set to open on Aug. 18, and fellows may work remotely or in New York workshops.
- •Participants must not trade on Polymarket or similar platforms during the program, and they will retain control over publication decisions.
Polymarket is creating a new academic research arm to study the growing role of prediction markets in forecasting and information discovery, Fortune reported Wednesday. The Polymarket Institute will fund independent research exploring whether event markets can outperform traditional polls and projection systems.
The initiative will be fully funded by Polymarket but structured around academic independence. Through the institute, Polymarket said it wants to provide the infrastructure and resources needed to evaluate prediction markets at scale, adding a research layer to a sector that has moved from niche speculation into broader debate over how markets aggregate information.
Kai Brusch, Polymarket’s head of data, will lead the institute as managing director, while Brian Jabarian, an economics and technology professor at Carnegie Mellon University, will serve as scientific director without personal compensation.
The launch comes as prediction markets have grown in popularity, with Polymarket and Kalshi becoming major platforms for contracts tied to elections, sports outcomes, monetary policy and other real-world events.
The Polymarket Institute will also introduce the Polymarket Science Fellowship, a one-year program for doctoral researchers in information economics, market design, forecasting and related fields. Twelve researchers will join the first cohort and receive $10,000 grants, with applications set to open on Aug. 18.
Fellows will examine how prediction markets collect and process information, price uncertainty and interact with emerging technologies such as AI, as well as policy and crypto markets. Researchers will receive expanded access to Polymarket data and may participate either remotely or through workshops in New York.
Polymarket said it is putting safeguards in place to protect research independence. Fellows must agree not to trade on Polymarket or similar platforms during their participation and must publish their work with accessible code and methodologies.
Researchers will retain full control over publication decisions, including the ability to release findings unfavorable to Polymarket. The institute will use a university gift model rather than sponsored research funding.
Fortune reported the launch on Wednesday.