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 awards Surveying the Social World opportunity to two UI researchers

Wednesday, March 25, 2026

UI researchers study role of mental illness in firearm violence

Monday, March 23, 2026

Brian Ekdale awarded CSSI Faculty Research Fellowship

Tuesday, March 3, 2026

Events and Workshops

Data Visualization in Stata with Chase LaSpisa promotional image

Data Visualization in Stata with Chase LaSpisa

Tuesday, March 31, 2026 2:00pm to 3:30pm
Virtual
This virtual workshop will introduce how to visualize data in multiple ways using Stata. Various data visualization examples will be demonstrated during the workshop. By the end of this workshop, participants will be able to create and edit presentation or publication quality visualizations (e.g., bar graphs, box plots, scatterplots) using Stata code. This is an introductory workshop appropriate for those with only basic familiarity with Stata. Example code will be provided.
 Longitudinal Modeling with Isaac Petersen, PhD promotional image

Longitudinal Modeling with Isaac Petersen, PhD

Wednesday, April 1, 2026 2:00pm to 4:00pm
Social Sciences Research Building
This workshop provides an applied overview of principles and methods for longitudinal data analysis, with hands-on examples in R. Topics include types of longitudinal data, data manipulation and visualization, statistical methods for longitudinal analysis (including mixed-effects models and structural equation models), longitudinal measurement invariance, handling missing data, and separating within-person and between-person effects. Participants are encouraged to bring a laptop with R and RStudio installed for interactive exercises. This workshop is intended for participants with experience using R and RStudio. Prior experience with longitudinal data analysis, though helpful, is not required.
Geospatial Data Analysis in R with Mainul Islam promotional image

Geospatial Data Analysis in R with Mainul Islam

Wednesday, April 8, 2026 2:00pm to 4:00pm
Virtual
This virtual workshop will introduce packages related to geospatial analysis to design a bivariate map in the R coding environment. By the end of this workshop, participants will be able to use geospatial packages in an R workflow to create a publication-quality bivariate map. A bivariate map helps to understand the spatial relationships, correlations, and patterns between two different spatial variables. This is an introductory workshop appropriate for those with only a basic familiarity with R and geospatial analysis. Example code will be provided. This is a virtual workshop and will be held over Zoom.