The Center for Social Science Innovation is committed to advancing, supporting, and celebrating interdisciplinary social science research. Under the Office of the Vice President for Research, CSSI:

• Serves as a central hub at the University of Iowa where social scientists, including faculty, staff, and PhD students, can find a community of research support and resources.
• Provides strategic resources to support innovative and high impact social science research, including but not limited to quantitative and qualitative empirical research, theory development, evaluation science, and historical and comparative approaches.
• Fosters interdisciplinary collaboration enabling scholars to address topics of significant public interest spanning human behavior, health, community, culture, and institutional functioning.
• Maintains strong partnerships with research offices, centers, and institutes across campus to collectively leverage different resources from the university and funding agencies, facilitating training, scholarship, and co-sponsoring collaborative ventures. 
• Seeks to improve the lives of Iowans by supporting research into how human behavior, civic engagement, and social interaction is affected by people’s physical and social environment.
• Collaborates with external partners from Iowa’s communities and government organizations providing research support services and topical expertise to help assess needs and solve local challenges.