About

About IQSS

We build infrastructure and community so social scientists can work at unprecedented speed, scale, and levels of collaboration.

Gary King

Director, Institute for Quantitative Social Science
Albert J Weatherhead III University Professor

The mission of IQSS is to contribute to solving society's greatest challenges by creating, preserving, and disseminating social science knowledge. We do this by building infrastructure and community so social scientists can work at unprecedented speed, scale, and levels of collaboration.

Our aim is to transform social science research, from the art of studying the toughest problems that affect human societies to the science of understanding and solving these problems. IQSS does this by building bridges from academia to the rest of the world—by collaborating with industry and governments in incentive-compatible ways to produce social good for academia, companies, and the general public. IQSS incubates programs, centers, initiatives, independent nonprofits and commercial startups and builds cutting edge infrastructure so scholars can do social science research better, faster, bigger, and more efficiently than anywhere in the world.

We are now able to work with unparalleled levels of privacy-preserving information about people, groups, firms, and countries and to invent the statistical methods, theories, and technologies necessary to make this data actionable. We have a chance at building the tools to understand human society well enough to ameliorate some of its major problems.
Social scientists used to have access to all data in the world about people—because either we created it, or it was given to us by governmental institutions. However, although we now have more data than ever before, we also have a smaller fraction of data about the people we study than ever before, as most is now locked up inside private companies, governments, and other institutions. IQSS faculty and staff have become experts at negotiating with outside industry and with offices across Harvard to access data. We continue to make it simpler to get data from companies in incentive compatible ways. Partnerships like this are part of our goal to deliver infrastructure that makes social science research faster and at greater scales.

Like an astronomer with a telescope that can help us see 1,000 times farther, we now have a chance at building the tools to understand human society well enough to ameliorate some of its major problems. The spectacular successes in the social sciences we have seen in the last few years are nothing compared to what is coming.

We are lucky to be in an unusual part of the economy where we do best ourselves when we help others and so we aim to lead in collaborative, academic ways—helping others build what we have built, while continuing to lead by developing the next innovation first and to push forward the science of society to new heights.

Locally, we aim to foster a flourishing community where students, faculty, and staff leverage each other's advances to take us all to the next level. Many of our faculty, research staff, students, and affiliates have been inspired to turn to thinking about how they can help. Come join us in transforming social science research and in turn, the world; you can make a difference.

Our Mission

Visual breakdown of IQSS services and community

Our History

We founded IQSS on March 1st, 2005, replacing the Center for Basic Research in the Social Sciences. Fourteen months later, IQSS was formally designated as a Harvard University-wide institute.

Over the next two years, IQSS incorporated within it the Harvard-MIT Data Center, the Henry A. Murray Research Archive, the Center for Geographic Analysis (CGA), the RWJ Scholars in Health Policy Program, and others.

Since then, IQSS has helped create numerous programs, centers, and initiatives that are now part of the Institute; elements of other Harvard units; ongoing collaborative efforts between IQSS and other Harvard groups; separate organizations within Harvard; and independent nonprofits and commercial firms outside of Harvard.

IQSS is now the University's largest social science research center and an integral part of the Harvard administration.

We continue to welcome numerous centers and institutes at universities around the world to replicate what we have built at IQSS. Administrators and faculty from other institutions have visited IQSS so regularly that we have standard protocols of meetings and tours for these events, and have even written an article summarizing our suggestions for others (see "Restructuring the Social Sciences: Reflections from Harvard’s Institute for Quantitative Social Science").

Learn More About IQSS

Programs & Products

IQSS houses and develops many faculty-led scientific programs, as well as software and systems tools designed to facilitate research and the use of large datasets.

Research Resources

IQSS offers access for social scientists to technological resources, and we’re ready to help you learn how to use them so you can focus on your research.

Our Impact

IQSS has encouraged and allowed researchers to think more expansively and take on projects that would have been impossible otherwise.

Become an Affiliate

IQSS welcomes requests from scholars to become affiliated with our institution. Affiliation allows graduate students and faculty to apply for funding or access IQSS-based services, such as Sponsored Research Services.

Learn how