About Creative Decisions Foundation

The Creative Decisions Foundation was established in 1996 by Thomas L. Saaty and his wife Rozann Whitaker Saaty to promote the cause of rational decision making and spread awareness of the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) theory of decision making created by Dr. Saaty. He held the chair of Distinguished University Professor at the Pitt Business School, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA, until he passed away in 2017, Mrs. Saaty is now the president of the Foundation, but it is primarily directed by a board on which two of the Saaty sons serve along with educators in the field. The Foundation is a 501 (c) (3) private operating foundation that has been largely funded by the Saaty family, friends and donors.

The Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) is used to derive measurements using human judgment to pairwise compare factors with respect to a common property. It is frequently applied in decision making to derive scales of measurement for the factors in a hierarchic or network model then combine these scales to obtain overall priorities for the factors. He first generalized the AHP to the Analytic Network Process (ANP) for dependence and feedback, then to the Neural Network Process (NNP) to study the transmission of neuronal signals in the brain. The AHP/ANP are applied in areas such as group decision-making on societal issues, conflict resolution, and resource allocation in private and government organizations. The Foundation recognizes and supports educators, students, authors and practitioners working in AHP.

The Foundation sponsors the biennial ISAHP (International Symposium on the Analytic Hierarchy Process) conferences that began in 1988 and take place around the world. They are attended by scholars, educators, students and researchers. There have been attendees from 30 to 40 countries at the last 5 conferences. The Foundation also sponsors the development of the AHP and ANP SuperDecisions software, making it available free or at minimal cost to members of the AHP community. The online academic journal IJAHP is supported by the Foundation. It was started in 2009 and its Editor-in-Chief and its board of editors are volunteers from academia. The Foundation supports this website for the AHP community. It serves as the repository of AHP articles, educational support materials, regional AHP groups, and announcements of interest.