The Center for Innovation in Social Science (CISS), founded in 2021, is an intellectual home for faculty, postdocs, graduate students and undergraduates doing social science research across the BU campus. We support path-breaking research and training future generations of social science students by using state-of-the-art methods and demonstrating the promise of the social sciences to improve human lives. CISS provides undergraduate students hands-on-research experience through our paid undergraduate research internship program, and our newly-launched Social Science Summer Writing Internship, designed to train the next generation of social science writers and journalists. Our graduate students receive paid research experience at local non-profit organizations, applying social science and methods to real-life contexts. In 2025, we will launch our inaugural Dissertation Fellowship to an outstanding PhD student whose research embodies CISS goals. CISS advances faculty research through pilot grants, paid student research assistantships, book workshops, professional development workshops and much more. BU social scientists do research that matters, and that can provide evidence-based solutions to contemporary global concerns.
CISS faculty and students are studying cutting-edge issues like immigration, climate change, population aging, poverty, incarceration, global epidemics, misinformation, voting behavior, and much more. Your generous gifts will support paid undergraduate academic-year research internships, summer research and writing internships, pilot grants for innovative faculty research, travel awards for graduate students to present research findings or conduct research in the field, research supplies, and more. Social science research is critical for evidence-based solutions to urgent problems; please help BU scholars to lead the way!
Pictured here: The inaugural Social Science Summer (2024) Writing Internship Program (SWIP) cohort (L–R): Nathaniel Clizbe (CAS’25), Anne Joseph (CAS’25), Rayea Jain (COM’26), Mika Yao (CAS’ 25), Devin Rauscher (CAS’26), with Dr. Stephen Hodin, SWIP coordinator and writing program senior lecturer.
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