Duke Social Science Research Institute

MISSION & HISTORY The Social Science Research Institute at Duke University SSRI brings together researchers with interests in problems that cross the various social and behavioral sciences, including problems that connect with the humanities and natural sciences.We promote multidisciplinary collaboration among such scholars as they work on important social issues that are challenging to address fully from within any given discipline. At SSRI, we help your projects grow. OUR MISSION SSRI’s core mission is to catalyze pioneering social science research and methods and their broad application by: - Developing and populating a 21st century social science data infrastructure that facilitates collaboration, empowers researchers to ask new questions, and addresses confidentiality and privacy concerns surrounding sensitive and protected data. - Providing support across the full range of social science methods to researchers and teams at all levels. - Facilitating cross-disciplinary connections between researchers interested in significant social problems and, where appropriate, supporting student and external engagement in these connections. - Incubating new cross-disciplinary collaborations that confront important social problems, and assisting in scaling such collaborations while connecting them, when appropriate, to external support. OUR HISTORY Since opening its doors in the summer of 2003 and becoming one of Duke’s six signature University Institutes in 2006, SSRI has continued to grow and now has two locations: SSRI (Gross Hall) and SSRI (Erwin Mill). SSRI provides research space and support for social science faculty and students in Gross Hall near the heart of West Campus. Enter the new space and be surrounded by team rooms devoted to research and projects. A welcoming large space, known as The Connection, features informal areas to cross paths on the way to coffee and refreshments as well as extensive whiteboards and writable glass to facilitate the instant exchange of ideas. Seminars, classes and teams operating in the space are able to draw on an extensive social science data infrastructure backed up by a 21st century help desk, providing assistance with data access, data management, and social science methods. This combination of space and research infrastructure serves as an incubator for social science research by faculty and students at Duke.