Polymarket sets up an institute to fund prediction market research
The exchange will pay doctoral researchers to study its own market category, with a Carnegie Mellon economist as scientific director and independence rules of its own design.
What happened
On 29 July Polymarket announced the Polymarket Institute, a research arm intended to fund independent academic work on prediction markets. Kai Brusch, the company's head of data, is managing director; Brian Jabarian, an assistant professor at Carnegie Mellon University, is scientific director, a role Fortune reports is unpaid. Fortune, which carried the announcement first, reports an inaugural cohort of twelve doctoral fellows receiving one-off grants of $10,000, applications opening on 18 August, and wider public access to the exchange's market data through its APIs. The company's release gives no funding figures.
Why it matters
The evidentiary base for how event contracts should be regulated is thin, and the CFTC's pending public interest rulemaking has drawn heavily on claims about the informational value of these markets. An exchange paying for the scholarship that will be cited back to its regulator is a familiar move from older industries, and it changes who holds the data: by coupling the institute with wider API access, Polymarket lowers the cost of outside scrutiny of its own order flow, including by researchers it does not fund.
What is not settled
The release states no budget, and Fortune's figures, twelve fellows at $10,000 each, describe the fellowship rather than the institute's total spending. Fortune reports that fellows are funded through university gifts rather than sponsored research and must agree not to trade on prediction markets; how that independence holds once findings cut against the sponsor is untested. Prediction News reads the launch as a contest with Kalshi for scholarly legitimacy ahead of future rulemakings, a framing that appears in neither the release nor Fortune's reporting.
Institutions in this story
-
Polymarket
Exchange
Set up the Polymarket Institute on 29 July 2026 to fund academic work on prediction markets, with its head of data as managing director and a Carnegie Mellon economist as scientific director, and widened access to its market data through its APIs at the same time.
-
Commodity Futures Trading Commission
Regulator
Its pending public interest rulemaking on event contracts is the room where claims about the informational value of these markets get argued, which is what makes an exchange funding the scholarship a regulatory move as much as an academic one.
-
Kalshi
Exchange
The rival designated contract market, and the other party with an interest in which body of scholarship regulators end up reading; Prediction News frames the institute as a contest with Kalshi for scholarly legitimacy, a reading neither the release nor Fortune supports.
On the record
Polymarket launches a research institute for prediction market science
Polymarket announced the Polymarket Institute on 29 July 2026, a research arm to fund academic work on prediction markets. Kai Brusch, the company's head of data, is managing director and Brian Jabarian of Carnegie Mellon University is scientific director in what Fortune reports is an unpaid role. Fortune reports an inaugural cohort of twelve doctoral fellows on one-off grants of $10,000, applications opening on 18 August, and wider public access to the exchange's market data through its APIs. The release itself gives no funding figures.