A research and education institute about human reasoning in decisions that carry consequences.

Between “we are a data-driven company” and how decisions are actually made there is a chasm — budgets, products and people fall into it. We work in that chasm.

Our values

01Don't outsource the thinking that mattersSome decisions can be automated. Others shape people, organizations and markets — for those, a human must not become the person who only clicks “Approve.”
02Capability is not authorityA system producing an answer does not mean it should own the decision. A recommendation is not judgment; prediction is not responsibility.
03Evidence over opinionThe value of research is the number of decisions made after it. Research is a hypothesis generator, not a truth machine — anyone promising truth after 20 interviews is lying.
04Honesty is a mechanism, not a sloganAnonymized cases are marked in the text. Our working hypothesis is published before fieldwork. Results carry confidence labels. We build our work so we cannot lie unnoticed — even to ourselves.
05Sufficiency over techniqueThe question is never “how to run an interview” but “is this enough for the decision you are making right now.” Saying “you don't need research” is part of the product.
06We think and build in systemsStructure, ecosystem, strategy and responsibility are one thing for us: every product belongs to a line, every line feeds the others, and every quarter we look back at what we made and what good it did. Systemic reflection is how we stay accountable for our own impact.

Where this comes from — the story of why the Institute exists.

Whose stakes are real

People who make decisions with incomplete evidence. Hover a card to see what each of them fears.

Founders & executives

Decide: bets, priorities, markets, risk.

Fear: false certainty at scale — and untruth hiding in metrics or data.

Product, design & research

Decide: what to build and why.

Fear: shipping a persuasive mistake — and analytics that won't reconcile with research.

Marketing & brand

Decide: who, promise, positioning.

Fear: confusing stated preference with demand — and losing the sense of who the customer is and what they need.

Organizational leaders

Decide: systems, people, policy.

Fear: delegating accountability to a tool — and losing control.

What we are made of

One institution, six lines — and this is how they actually connect. Research feeds programs and playbooks; those set the standard for decision making; live cases flow back into research. Community and Library live off all of it.

Our products

Nina Somkina

Meet the founder

Hi, I'm Nina.

Researcher, lecturer, consultant — and a mentor with more than 200 sessions in the last six months.

Ten years of mixed-methods practice, hundreds of interviews a year. I wrote “So They Lied to You” — the Institute's first tool — because everything I teach was first done by hand, broken, fixed and documented honestly.

Where to find us

Write to us or follow the Institute on LinkedIn.