Social Science Research Council (SSRC)

This month’s theme is the environment—one of the most urgent and consequential areas of social science inquiry, and the site of profound human-driven change. As we close out Earth Month, … The post Items & Issues Newsletter: April 2026 appeared first on Social Science Research Council (SSRC) .

The SSRC is excited to announce the launch of the SSRC-JF Next Generation Japan Studies Development Program, a new initiative in partnership with and supported by the Japan Foundation. Designed to foster cross-cultural scholarly engagement and collaboration, the program opens new opportunities for students, faculty, and institutions to deepen Japan-related research and teaching in the United Stat…

February 2026 Newsletter The SSRC’s first-ever research committee was formed in response to the restrictive immigration laws of the 1920s. A century later, as enforcement and detention expand and public scrutiny of federal immigration operations increases, this issue of Items & Issues gathers social science research on immigration and its connections to labor, race, foreign policy, surveillance, …

This month’s Items & Issues Newsletter theme theme is Urbanism and Infrastructure, focusing on how people interact with the built environment and how city infrastructure can best serve public needs.

The Council is excited to announce that a new grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York will support our African Peacebuilding Network and Next Generation Social Sciences in Africa (APN and Next Gen) program. Over 840 fellowships have been awarded since the program’s inception to support independent African research on peacebuilding, doctoral education, and knowledge dissemination on the co…

A new policy brief from the AI Disclosures Project, “MCP in Practice,” by Sruly Rosenblat, Ilan Strauss, Tim O’Reilly, and Isobel Moure, maps how Anthropic’s Model Context Protocol (MCP) is … The post New Policy Brief from AI Disclosures Project appeared first on Social Science Research Council (SSRC) .

For more than a century, the Social Science Research Council (SSRC) has been furthering research and building research capacity in the social sciences for the benefit of the public. At a moment when the social sciences are ever more important, the SSRC’s Board of Directors has launched the search for the Council’s new President, with an appointment expected to take effect in early 2026. The post …

The SSRC and the Japan Foundation New York have awarded new research grants to four Abe Fellows leading cross-disciplinary, cross-national research teams working on better understanding important social issues. The projects address the development of transparency in parliamentary systems, international responses to bird flu, gender-based income shocks, and neurodiversity-inclusive learning. The p…

Recently, the Social Science Research Council (SSRC), with support from Arnold Ventures (AV), launched the Criminal Justice Innovation (CJI) Fellowship program, which supports early-career researchers who are exploring what works to make communities safer and the criminal justice system fairer and more effective. We spoke with current CJI Fellow Shinjini Pandey, who is a Postdoctoral Associate in…

A new policy brief from the AI Disclosures Project, “Protocols and Power” by Isobel Moure, Tim O’Reilly, and Ilan Strauss, argues that as AI models become commodities, tech giants are … The post New Policy Brief from AI Disclosures Project appeared first on Social Science Research Council (SSRC) .

The SSRC is excited to announce the 2025 cohort of fellows for the African Peacebuilding Network (APN) and Next Gen Social Sciences in Africa (Next Gen) program. This year’s cohort will conduct expert research on diverse topics including policy for localizing digital technology, the impacts of the lithium rush in Zimbabwe, and depictions of women in African cinemas of conflict. In this year’s com…

The Social Science Research Council is partnering with the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to host a Research Rescue Fund that will provide financial support for societally valuable economics research projects that have been approved for NSF funding but that are not currently receiving that funding. Review of applications to the fund will be conducted by an advisory panel of Americans drawn from diffe…