Research and Program Support

Cornell social scientists are redefining research and education that have a direct impact on the quality of our daily lives. Their work helps drive the academic vehicle that fulfills the university's land-grant mission in national and international outreach. The ongoing pursuit of excellence in the social sciences depends on the university's ability to marshal the strengths of a range of disciplines and create varied opportunities for people from different disciplines to come together to probe questions that defy simple answers. Key components of this strategy are the Small Grant Program, Theme Projects, and Faculty Fellows awards that are coordinated through the interdisciplinary Institute for the Social Sciences.

Types of Support

Endow the Institute for the Social Sciences: $15 million

The Institute for the Social Sciences (ISS) is the focal point in Cornell’s strategy to foster creative, relevant, and fruitful research and promote the research agendas of junior faculty members. Its emphasis on collaborative research across disciplinary and institutional boundaries makes the ISS unique and effective in its approach to current social questions. In order to operate the ISS and guarantee its financial stability far into the future, an endowment gift of $15 million is needed. This represents both the single largest funding need in the Social Sciences Initiative and also one of its most important priorities.

Endow ISS 3-Year Theme Project: $3 million

ISS-sponsored theme projects run for three years each, enabling students and professors from many departments to engage a topic both deeply and broadly. Bringing top faculty together to explore a common theme or societal question from varied perspectives leads to stronger research findings that might have taken decades to accumulate under normal circumstances. The promise is more effective long-term solutions. Current theme projects are:

• Persistent Poverty and Upward Mobility (2008–2011)
  
• Contentious Knowledge: Science, Social Science, and Social Movements (2006–2009)
  
• Getting Connected: Social Science in the Age of Networks (2005–2008)
  
  

Endow ISS Small Grant Program: $5 million

The ISS Small Grants Program awards funding for early stage and exploratory research. The ISS seeks to expand its funding of small grants to $300,000 annually to provide seed funding for a greater number of innovative research ideas. Doing so will simultaneously increase Cornell’s commitment to groundbreaking research in the social sciences and aid faculty recruitment by elevating support for incoming faculty to a level comparable with other top-flight universities.

• Endow One Semester of Small Grants Projects: $2.5 million
• Endow a Single Small Grants Project in Perpetuity: $400,000
  
  

Endow ISS Faculty Fellows Program: $2.5 million

The Faculty Fellows Program is a new initiative designed to nurture the careers of assistant professors coming up for tenure review and associate professors coming up for promotion. The fellows will work in residence at the institute for a semester and be excused from teaching and major administrative responsibilities in their departments. They will be awarded a $10,000 research grant. To be self-sustaining, the program is in need of a $2.5 million endowment gift.

Cornell Institute for Social and Economic Research (CISER) Hardware: $9 million

CISER supports the social science and economic research communities at Cornell. Services provided include a state-of-the-art computing network, software consultation, data acquisition, data analysis workshops, and a secure environment for using confidential data. It is one of two locations for the New York Census Research Data Center. Currently, faculty are charged for this resource. A gift of $9 million will enable the purchase of critical hardware and technology improvements and reduce the costs of maintaining a resource of this caliber.

Vice Provost's Fund for Strategic Initiatives

Current-use funds supply the much-needed gift of flexibility. The provost can use these unrestricted funds immediately to address the most pressing needs and respond quickly to new opportunities. These gifts are vital to sustaining the innovation and excellence that distinguish Cornell social sciences.

To discuss support for the Social Sciences Initiative, contact Kristen Ford.