Heritage Foundation releases 'Heritage 2.0' 2026 policy priorities — no personnel pillar; Project 2025 four-pillar architecture not continued

What Happened

On approximately December 9, 2025, the Heritage Foundation released “Heritage 2.0,” a forward-looking policy-priorities document outlining nine agenda areas for 2026. The document was promoted by Newsweek, NOTUS, and Axios, which framed it as a “Project 2026” successor. Heritage explicitly denied the “Project 2026” branding — a Heritage spokesperson told Newsweek: “There is no Project 2026 and will not be.”

Key Facts

Heritage 2.0 is NOT a Project 2025 successor in architecture: The document is “significantly shorter than its predecessor” and organizes around nine policy priorities rather than the four-pillar structure (Policy / Personnel / Database / Academy / Playbook) that defined Project 2025.

Nine 2026 priorities include:

• Countering the Chinese Communist Party (“China-resistant economy”)
• Dismantling the “deep state” and reducing federal government size
• Streamlining environmental and energy regulations
• Advancing cultural priorities (family issues, abortion reduction)
• Election integrity
• Regulating Big Tech through antitrust enforcement

No personnel pillar: Heritage 2.0 does not include a personnel database, training academy, or transition playbook equivalent. The White House declined to comment on whether it intends to collaborate with Heritage on the 2026 priorities.

Structural significance — negative finding: The absence of a personnel pillar in Heritage 2.0 is a documented structural change. Whether the Project 2025 personnel infrastructure (database, Academy) continues informally beyond Heritage’s formal document cycle is not confirmed by any public reporting as of May 2026.

Why This Event Matters

The Heritage 2.0 release marks the formal close of the Project 2025 four-pillar architecture as a publicly announced operational framework. The first Trump term showed Heritage’s implementation tracking (64% of 334 recommendations in Trump-1) becoming Heritage’s own accountability metric. The Heritage 2.0 shift to nine thematic priorities — without a personnel component — suggests Heritage is repositioning from transition-planning infrastructure to ongoing-policy-advocacy mode now that the administration is seated.

The absence of a personnel pillar is consistent with the administration’s established practice: with the White House Office of Presidential Personnel now staffed by figures from the Project 2025 pipeline (including Saurabh Sharma of American Moment), Heritage no longer needs to maintain the external database. The pipeline has been internalized.

Research Gaps

• Whether the Heritage Personnel Database remains actively maintained and used for ongoing sub-cabinet and career-level placements
• Whether the Presidential Administration Academy continues to offer training programs post-inauguration
• Whether Heritage’s shift to “Heritage 2.0” framing represents a deliberate distancing from the Project 2025 brand or a genuine operational shift

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