In February 2007, SSRI hosted the inaugural conference of the National Consortium of Social Science Research Centers and Institutes. This conference initiated the consortium and defined its goals.

Specifically, the consortium is oriented toward sharing ideas, strategies, and development plans so that all member organizations can each best promote cutting edge social and behavioral science research and methods on their respective campuses, and, through their teamwork, promote these important resources at the national level. The organization is open to participation from all institutes and centers nationally that serve an interdisciplinary group of departments and/or schools across one or more local campuses and that include within their activities some combination of (a) interdisciplinary programs; (b) centralized, shared resources, such as research laboratories; and (c) assistance to social scientists seeking external support for their research. Of the twenty-seven such organizations we identified and contacted, slightly more than half – fourteen – were able to send representatives to this first meeting. 

The day-long conference provided many valuable exchanges, with participants identifying many common concerns, including the difficulties involved in securing external support for infrastructure organizations such as these; the challenges of visionary long-term planning in the context of uncertain resources; the ways to measure and demonstrate our impact; the  best ways to structure relations with other academic units, such as departments and schools; and possible programs to involve students and junior faculty in interdisciplinary initiatives in contexts in which hiring, evaluation, and promotion are often strongly intra-disciplinary in nature. In organizing the Consortium, SSRI is building a structure to promote a community of similar centers and institutes.  To date, we have established a listserv for the group and developed a Web site for collaboration and networking.

Consortium Web site