Advancing Social Science Through Interdisciplinary Collaboration

The Center for Social Science Innovation (CSSI) is the University of Iowa’s only Iowa Board of Regents approved premier interdisciplinary social science research center.

CSSI provides faculty, staff, students, and community members across the state of Iowa and beyond the resources and support they need to investigate the most important issues facing our society.

6 +

research incubation programs hosted annually
Researchers sit around a table

$26.9 M

In funds awarded in the
past five years
Old capitol building with flowers

80 +

Research projects supported in the past five years
2024 Summer Program cohort.

We're here to help

CSSI provides research and grant development support for University of Iowa faculty, staff, and graduate students, as well as external partners within the community. 

From survey creation and distribution, data access and management, to helping you craft a competitive grant proposal, our team is ready and capable to assist you with all of your project needs.

Explore current and past projects

 

Brian Ekdale and Mainul Islam consultation

Research Services

Browse our research services to learn how we may be able to help support your project. 

Kris Ackerson and Bingbing Zhang talk

Grant Development

Identify suitable funding opportunities, craft a competitive proposal, and more with the help of our grant development support staff.  

News

CSSI welcomes 2025-2026 Dissertation Completion Program cohort

Wednesday, October 29, 2025

Spirituality: The newest prescription from CSSI researcher affiliate Katherine Britt

Wednesday, October 22, 2025
someone typing on a computer with sticky notes around

CSSI invites UI faculty and scientific staff to apply for Grant Writing Residency Program

Wednesday, October 15, 2025

Events and Workshops

CSSI Workshop: Facial Emotion Recognition with Sang Jung Kim, PhD - Part 1: Foundations of Computer Vision for Social Scientists promotional image

CSSI Workshop: Facial Emotion Recognition with Sang Jung Kim, PhD - Part 1: Foundations of Computer Vision for Social Scientists

Tuesday, November 4, 2025 12:30pm to 2:00pm
Virtual
This session offers an introduction to core computer vision concepts and their emerging applications in computational social science.
CSSI Workshop: Facial Emotion Recognition with Sang Jung Kim, PhD - Part 2: Applying FER and DeepFace in a Case Study promotional image

CSSI Workshop: Facial Emotion Recognition with Sang Jung Kim, PhD - Part 2: Applying FER and DeepFace in a Case Study

Tuesday, November 11, 2025 12:30pm to 2:00pm
Social Sciences Research Building
In the second session, participants will engage in hands-on coding to apply facial emotion recognition techniques using the Python packages FER and DeepFace.
CSSI Workshop: Intro to Python (Part 1) with Anindita Bandyopadhyay promotional image

CSSI Workshop: Intro to Python (Part 1) with Anindita Bandyopadhyay

Wednesday, November 12, 2025 2:00pm to 4:00pm
Virtual
This workshop will introduce Python and foundational machine learning concepts, utilizing a dataset comprising textual content.