

A consortium of higher education institutions dedicated to strengthening the infrastructure for social science.
The College and University Fund for the Social Sciences (CUF) is a consortium of higher education institutions dedicated to strengthening the research and funding infrastructure for social science worldwide.
Through cross-institutional collaborations in partnership with philanthropic foundations, public science funders, and state and local governments, members of the College and University Fund are pioneering new strategies to support research for the public good.
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New Opportunity: Supporting research collaborations between SSRC member universities and their state and local government partners through the Policy Innovation Days initiative
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EVENTS
On Friday, December 12, 2025, 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 other research partners, to discuss “The Case for the Social Sciences.”
Universities are under immense pressure to demonstrate their value (and their values) to constituencies including governments, students, parents, and civil society. Recent changes in federal funding are symptomatic of, and increase, this pressure. In this context, this meeting will focus on several questions that will help us understand how our universities have arrived at this point of deep skepticism about their enterprise, and how social scientists might make a stronger case for themselves, inside in the university and to the broader world.
2024 College and University Fund Conference
2023 College and University Fund Conference
2022 College and University Fund Conference
2025 College and University Fund Lecture Series
Advocates of abundance have identified “failed public policy” as an increasingly significant barrier to growth. State and local policies that fail to effectively deliver critically important public goods and services like health, education, safety, clean air and water, and growth-oriented infrastructure are of particular concern.
The Social Science Research Council is supporting the members of the College and University Fund for the Social Sciences in leveraging the emerging research findings about the determinants of government innovation to design a set of evidence-based initiatives aimed at accelerating state and local government innovation.
INITIATIVES
We know relatively little about the efficacy of universities’ efforts to encourage commercially viable scientific and technological innovation, support the contributions of grant-funded students and early career researchers to scientific and technological innovation after they leave university campuses, and increase and broaden opportunities in critical STEM fields.
The Social Science Research Council is supporting the members of the College and University Fund for the Social Sciences in designing a set of initiatives aimed at generating evidence-based strategies to accelerate universities' contributions to scientific and technological innovation.
For information about how to join, or for other general inquiries about the College and University Fund for the Social Sciences, please email president@ssrc.org.
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