Think tank publications and advocacy positions enter the public record and stay there. A methodology weakness that a hostile commentator finds, a statistic that doesn’t survive scrutiny from a rival institution, or a policy recommendation whose evidence base has been superseded — these become the story. Augle runs the adversarial review before publication, not after.
A think tank’s credibility is its only asset. A policy paper that makes a statistical claim a hostile statistician can dismantle in a tweet, or an advocacy position whose primary study has been superseded, damages that credibility in ways a correction doesn’t repair. The standard for publication should be higher than the standard for friendly peer review. Augle applies the adversarial standard before you publish.
Questions think tanks run on Augle
The Methodologist evaluates every statistical claim against the study design that generated it — whether the effect size is appropriately qualified, whether relative risk is being presented without the absolute baseline, whether a correlation is being presented as causal. These are the objections that become quote-tweets within 48 hours of publication.
The Guardian’s SVS checks every citation against retraction databases and assesses replication status. A policy recommendation that depends on a study with known replication failures, or a statistic drawn from a retracted paper, is flagged before it enters the published record — not discovered by an opponent after publication.
The Contrarian evaluates the full evidence landscape, not just the evidence the paper cites. A position paper that presents a contested claim as settled, or that cites studies selectively while ignoring materially relevant contrary evidence, will not survive a well-resourced critic. Augle surfaces both sides before publication.
The Methodologist evaluates external validity — whether the evidence base for a recommendation applies to the population, context, and scale the recommendation targets. A policy drawn from a randomised trial in a different country, or a programme evaluation with a non-representative sample, requires explicit qualification.
Each scenario illustrates realistic deliberation behaviour across policy publication, advocacy preparation, and research quality review.
“Does our paper’s headline claim — that universal free school meals reduce childhood obesity rates by 18% — survive methodological scrutiny, and what will critics say?”
The paper was two days from publication. The preprint status of the primary source hadn’t been flagged in internal review. Three targeted edits moved the paper from methodologically vulnerable to defensible — and kept the policy recommendation, which was sound, from being buried under a methodology story.
“Is the evidence base for our campaign’s central claim — that community supervision is more effective than incarceration at reducing reoffending — strong enough to withstand a hostile media cycle?”
The campaign’s evidence base was strong — for the population the research actually covered. The materials had silently extended it to all offenders. One scoping edit and a prepared FAQ for the predictable hostile question turned a vulnerability into a demonstration of research rigour.
“Does the evidence base cited in this grant application support the causal claims the applicant makes about their programme’s impact on educational attainment?”
The application was compelling and the programme was promising. The causal claim overreach and the journal integrity flag were not visible in a standard desk review. A conditional grant with a scoped claim requirement protected the foundation’s evaluation record — and gave the applicant a clear path to funding.
Upload policy papers, research reports, briefings, and supporting studies. Academic and editorial integrity modes activate — the Guardian checks retraction status, preprint and peer review classification, source independence, and statistical claim validity before any agent receives the evidence.
The Cartographer classifies every claim as Settled, Contested, or Unknown. The Methodologist assesses whether the evidence supports the conclusions drawn — effect size qualification, external validity, causal inference. Confidence bounds are set before deliberation begins, not after.
The Contrarian takes the role of a well-resourced critic at a rival institution or a hostile journalist — surfacing the strongest version of every objection. Every challenge specifies a resolution condition. Unresolved Strong objections appear verbatim with a resolution condition. These become the pre-publication edit list.
The Synthesizer produces a finding anchored to the evidence base — not the position the paper argues. Confidence grades per claim, unresolved objections verbatim, and reopen conditions that specify what new evidence would change the assessment. The paper that emerges is the one that survives hostile scrutiny.
The Contrarian is calibrated to surface the objection a well-resourced critic at a rival institution, a hostile journalist, or a hostile politician’s advisor will deploy. Unresolved objections appear verbatim with resolution conditions. The paper that goes out is the one that has already survived the worst-case scrutiny scenario.
The Guardian’s SVS checks every citation against retraction databases, assesses preprint and peer review status, and flags source independence concerns. A primary study with known replication failures, or a statistic drawn from a retracted paper, doesn’t survive SVS. It shouldn’t survive your review process either.
Every claim receives a confidence grade — Established, Probable, Contested, or Gap — based on the evidence base, not the advocacy position. The difference between Probable and Contested is the difference between a paper with appropriate caveats and one that makes claims it can’t defend. Knowing which is which before publication is the entire value.
Join the waitlist and run a session on your next policy paper before it goes out.