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

From Iowa's Hank Lab to Romania's Streets: a conversation with Patricia Marga

Wednesday, November 12, 2025

Social scientists join forces to research safer AI mental health chatbots

Monday, November 3, 2025

CSSI welcomes 2025-2026 Dissertation Completion Program cohort

Wednesday, October 29, 2025

Events and Workshops

CSSI Workshop: Intro to Python (Part 2) with Anindita Bandyopadhyay promotional image

CSSI Workshop: Intro to Python (Part 2) with Anindita Bandyopadhyay

Wednesday, December 3, 2025 2:00pm to 4:00pm
Virtual
This workshop will delve deeper into text mining techniques and basic NLP (Natural Language Processing) approaches.
ICPSR in a Flash: Unlock Data for Discovery promotional image

ICPSR in a Flash: Unlock Data for Discovery

Wednesday, December 10, 2025 1:00pm to 1:45pm
Virtual
Join CSSI for a quick introduction to the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR), the world's largest archive of social science data.