Is there a word/term/phrase that specifically describes people who work in think tanks or policy institutes (doing socioeconomic research)? "Researchers" don't work for me since academics and government employees can also be researchers.
I am trying to distinguish between the different groups of people who attended a specific conference (one that broadly applied to all groups).
The attendees included academics (meaning profs, PhD candidates, etc.), students, public policy analysts (meaning government policy makers), and think tanks / policy institutes.
The parts in italics are just for the purposes of this post.
As you can see, the last element is an odd one – it is basically referring to policy researchers in the private sector. But it doesn't fit. The first three elements are people but the last one is a body/organization?
Best Answer
The phrase I'd use is "Research fellows at think tanks and policy institutes".
The job title "Research fellow" is current, but ambiguous, since a research fellow could be working at a university. So I clarify it with "at think tanks...". As Michael suggests, that could be shortened to "Think-tank researchers".
As an alternative, you could say "... public and independent policy analysts". Or "... and policy analysts from the public and private sectors".