Academic Consultation and Delphi Programme

Layer 1 – Open Academic Consultation (open now): university people write open answers on unity, identity, the state and the future.

Layer 2 – Delphi expert panel (planned; registration open): registered participants rate statements drawn from Layer 1, anonymously and over several rounds, to find where they agree.

Layer 3 – Youth Strategy Competition (planned, yearly): young people turn the panel’s findings into practical strategies.

Each layer feeds the next. No layer is a vote or a referendum: the results describe the people who take part, and every result shows the number of participants.

Who can take part: only university people aged 18 and over – current students, graduates, academic staff, and university-based professionals and researchers – inside or outside Afghanistan, of any field and nationality, with no upper age limit.

What you do: write open answers in your own words. All open questions are optional. The consultation takes about 1–2 hours.

Save and resume: your answers are saved automatically on your own device and browser, so you can close the page and continue later on the same device. Saved answers are deleted after you submit.

Analysis: answers are coded by theme by two coders. The main themes become the statements that the panel rates in Layer 2.

Take part in the Open Academic Consultation

Who can take part: registered and verified participants aged 18 or over, with no upper age limit – young and experienced people, inside and outside Afghanistan. Our target is at least 500 panellists. Results are also reported by group (for example inside or outside Afghanistan, women and men, students and young graduates, academics and practitioners) wherever a group has at least 50 people.

Rounds: at least two rounds of anonymous rating. You rate each statement on a 5-point scale (1 = strongly disagree, 5 = strongly agree) and may add a short reason. Statements that do not reach consensus go to the next round. The panel stops after the third rating round even if consensus is not reached, and this is reported.

Consensus rule (fixed before the first round): a statement reaches consensus when at least 70% of panellists rate it 4 or 5 (agreement), or 1 or 2 (disagreement), and the interquartile range (IQR) is 1 or less. The stability of ratings between rounds is also reported.

Controlled feedback between rounds: before each new round you see, for every statement, the group statistics (median, IQR and percentage agreement), your own earlier rating, and a short selection of anonymised comments from different sides. The organisers add no commentary of their own.

Faceless anonymity and respectful language: you answer with a personal code. Panellists never see each other’s names, and no name appears in any feedback. The key that links names to codes is kept separately by the Data Custodian. Comments are shared only after identifying details and insulting or harsh words have been removed. Disagreement is welcome; disrespect is not.

Attrition plan: each round is open for about two weeks and takes no more than about 20 minutes. Two reminders are sent in each round. Panellists who miss one round stay on the panel and are invited to the next. The number of panellists in every round is published, and those who complete are compared with those who leave.

Indicative timeline (months may change; any change is announced on this page): November 2026 – February 2027: Layer 1 open and panel registration open · March 2027: themes coded, statements prepared and protocol published · April 2027: rating round 1 · May 2027: rating round 2 with feedback · June 2027: rating round 3, if needed · September 2027: results report.

Reporting: the panel is reported following the CREDES guidance (Jünger et al., 2017) and the ACCORD reporting guideline (Gattrell et al., 2024): how panellists were recruited and selected, the number of rounds, the response rate in each round, the consensus rule and the feedback given.

Register for the expert panel

Status: planned. It runs every year, for young people only (ages 18 to 44), with its own rules, which are published before each edition.

How it builds on the panel: entrants choose a theme on which the Delphi panel reached agreement and write a practical strategy for it.

Stages: open written entries · an expert check against published criteria · a shortlist · an online final (webinar or forum) where shortlisted entrants present their work · one winner.

Entries are judged on their content. Entrants may use a pen name in public.

Register your interest

Consultation answers and panel registrations are collected in separate forms. We do not link names to consultation answers.

We record technical data (such as IP address) only to detect automated or duplicate submissions. It is never published or shared.

Results are shown at province level at most. Groups with fewer than 50 people are not reported, and no table cell shows fewer than 10 people.

Free-text answers and panel comments are scrubbed of names, places and other identifying details before anyone uses them.

Raw data is never sold or shared. The Data Custodian (the Think Tank Coordinator) holds the raw data, and the Access Reviewer (the external reviewer) checks every request for access. Every access is logged.

Raw answers are deleted 24 months after each layer closes. Registration details are kept for up to 24 months, or until you ask to leave.

More: Research Standards · Privacy and Cookies Policy.

Short briefs on each main theme.

An annual report on the programme.

An aggregate dashboard after the run, showing group results only and no individual answers.

All outputs follow the review and disclosure rules of the Research Standards.