About

The College and University Fund for the Social Sciences (CUF) is a network of higher education partners that are dedicated to connecting across disciplines and institutions to produce high-impact scholarship, and to expanding the funding infrastructure for social and behavioral science worldwide. Through CUF, the SSRC brings together university leaders and public and private funders of social and behavioral science to set a broad research agenda, build networks that will seek solutions to global challenges, and ensure that significant funding can be directed toward the most
impactful research projects.

Through the SSRC’s College and University Fund for the Social Sciences (CUF), we connect leaders of the nation’s most active research institutions with our network of public and private funders of social and behavioral science, including the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Ford Foundation, Open Society Foundations, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Knight Foundation, and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. In 2014, the CUF was launched with a dozen founding university members. Today, that number has grown to more than forty-five institutions, predominantly AAU research institutions.

A critical goal of the College and University Fund is to build support for a significant expansion of the infrastructure for social and behavioral science funding. With rare exceptions, funding for social science tends to be relatively small grants awarded to single researchers. Funding of that scale is simply not adequate to conduct the kind of large-scale science needed to meet the challenges of our most pressing social problems, including pandemics, climate change, persistent inequality, and threats to democratic institutions. These challenges exist at scale, and demand a research response that is proportionately at scale.

Conferences and Initiatives

2024 College and University Fund Conference: Research to Solve Problems
2024 College and University Fund Conference: Research to Solve Problems
December 6, 2024
On December 6, 2024, the Social Science Research Council will convene institutional leaders from the College and University Fund for the Social Sciences, together with leaders of philanthropic organizations and federal science agencies, to share insights about how to foster social and behavioral science that helps policymakers solve pressing social problems. What kinds of partnerships, funding streams, and administrative supports can sustain a pipeline of knowledge production and transfer aimed at public sector innovation? What can we learn, if anything, from the research infrastructure dedicated to supporting knowledge production and transfer for private sector innovation? Are there good examples of research-to-policy pipelines on our campuses?
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Why Leading Institutions Join

Convening Institutional Leaders
The SSRC regularly convenes institutional leaders from the College and University Fund for the Social Sciences together with leaders from our public and philanthropic funding partners. These annual conferences offer an opportunity for research institutions to sit down with research funders and share ideas about practices that can more fully mobilize the research community to develop bold solutions to the globe’s most pressing challenges. In addition to these in-person convenings, CUF partners are invited to participate in cross-institutional learning through a series of virtual workshops focused on sharing what works–and what doesn’t work–to mobilize social and behavioral science that is both policy-relevant and scientifically rigorous.
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Social and Behavioral Science at Scale
Public and private funding organizations, state legislatures, and donors increasingly expect universities to produce socially impactful and policy-relevant research. However, publication and promotion incentives may undermine efforts to mobilize the social and behavioral science research community to pursue policy-relevant research. Through its Agenda Fund, the Council is partnering with leaders of CUF institutions to develop new initiatives that can address these challenges by working directly with leaders of private and public funding organizations to identify high-value investment opportunities in the social and behavioral sciences.
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Increasing Diversity in STEM
Many social and behavioral science disciplines remain stubbornly unrepresentative. The relative lack of diversity in these disciplines may limit both the questions that are asked, and the innovativeness of proposed solutions. But several findings from the social and behavioral science on inclusion suggest that there may be ways of reorganizing university practices so as to increase diversity and inclusion in disciplines that remain less representative. In partnership with CUF member institutions, the SSRC is sponsoring an initiative to pilot evaluations of alternative university practices to increase the numbers and success of women in economics, and is working to expand this initiative to other disciplines.
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Increasing the Pace of Scientific Innovation
The rate of scientific innovation appears to be decreasing over time. Given the importance of scientific innovation for spurring increases in productivity and economic growth, this is a troubling trend. But several findings from the social and behavioral science on innovation suggest that there may be ways of reorganizing university-based science so as to increase the production of innovation. In partnership with CUF member institutions, the SSRC is developing an initiative to pilot evaluations of alternative university practices to explore a new frontier in the science of innovation: experimentation on university campuses.
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Estimating the Economic Benefits of Science R&D
In recent years, Congress has increasingly turned to geographically targeted investments in university-based science R&D to galvanize economic growth in areas of the country that have lagged economically. These investments have begun to reverse decades of declining federal investment in science. But continued bipartisan political support for these investments is conditional on credible evidence that geographically dispersed investments in science R&D in fact lead to geographically dispersed economic growth. In partnership with CUF member institutions, the SSRC is developing an initiative to engage social and behavioral scientists in estimating the local economic returns from university-based science R&D.
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For information about how to join, or for other general inquiries about the College and University Fund for the Social Sciences, please email:

Lisa Marshall, Director of Strategic Partnerships
marshall@ssrc.org

News & Events

University of Pittsburgh joins the SSRC College and University Fund for the Social Sciences

The Social Science Research Council welcomes the University of Pittsburgh to the ranks of the 49 North American institutions that comprise the College and University Fund for the Social Sciences.

Welcoming the University of Toronto to the CUF

The Social Science Research Council is pleased to welcome the University of Toronto, the first Canadian University to join the ranks of the College and University Fund for the Social Sciences.

University of Washington Joins the College and University Fund for the Social Sciences

The SSRC is proud to welcome the University of Washington to the College and University Fund for the Social Sciences (CUF). UW joins a network of more than forty CUF higher education partners that are dedicated to connecting across disciplines and institutions to produce high-impact scholarship, and to expanding the funding infrastructure for social and behavioral science worldwide.

University of Arizona Joins the College and University Fund for the Social Sciences

The SSRC’s College and University Fund for the Social Sciences (CUF) is pleased to welcome the University of Arizona to its network of over 40 higher education partner institutions.

The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the University of Montana Join the CUF

The SSRC is pleased to welcome two new member institutions to the College and University Fund for the Social Sciences: the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the University of Montana.

Laura Stilwell of Duke University Awarded 2022 Charles E. Lindblom Memorial Fellowship

The Social Science Research Council (SSRC) is proud to announce that Laura Stilwell of Duke University has been selected as the 2022 recipient of the Charles E. Lindblom Memorial Fellowship. …

Case Western Reserve University Joins the College and University Fund for the Social Sciences

The SSRC is proud to welcome Case Western Reserve University to the College and University Fund for the Social Sciences (CUF). Case Western Reserve joins a network of forty CUF …

Member Institutions

Arizona State University
Boston College
Boston University
Brown University
Carnegie Mellon University
Case Western Reserve University
Columbia University
Cornell University
Duke University
Emory University
Georgetown University
Harvard University
Johns Hopkins University
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
McMaster University
Michigan State University
New York University
Northwestern University
Ohio State University
Purdue University
Pomona College
Rutgers University – Camden
Rutgers University – New Brunswick
Rutgers University – Newark
Rutgers Biomedical Health Sciences
Princeton University
Rice University
Smith College
Stanford University
Swarthmore College
Texas Christian University
University of Arizona
University of California, Berkeley
University of California, Irvine
University of California, Los Angeles
University of California, Riverside
University of California, San Diego
University of California, Santa Barbara
University of California, Santa Cruz
University of Chicago
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
University of Michigan
University of Minnesota
University of Montana
University of Pennsylvania
University of Pittsburgh
University of Southern California
University of Toronto
University of Washington
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Vanderbilt University
Washington University in St. Louis
Yale University
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