Nature Index Ranks Harvard #1 in Social Science Research, Highlighting IQSS
by Elizabeth Salazar
Nature Index 2025 ranks Harvard as #1 in the world in its first ever ranking of top social science research institutions, primarily crediting IQSS and IQSS’ Henry A. Murray Research Archive for the decision.
Rankings like this do not happen by accident, they are the product of a large, diverse, and deeply talented community of people working every day to push the boundaries of social science knowledge. IQSS plays a key role in this success, providing the infrastructure, data resources, methodological expertise, and collaborative environment that enable faculty, students, and staff across the University to produce social science research at the highest levels.
As Harvard’s interdisciplinary hub for social science research, IQSS works to connect academia to the rest of the world, collaborating with government and industry leaders to effect concrete, real-world impact that benefits the public good. IQSS incubates a wide range of research initiatives and commercial startups, and it builds cutting-edge data infrastructure so scholars are empowered to challenge the limits of today's social science research.
The Henry A Murray Research Archive is part of the open source Dataverse Project, which IQSS created and leads, and is now the world’s largest general purpose research data repository. Via ongoing innovation via open protocols, widespread integration with the broader data sharing community and disciplines across academia, journal replication archives, a robust international community, and major installations around the world, Dataverse enables scholars to share, preserve, cite, explore, and analyze research data. Data from millions of articles have been shared as part of its collection of more than 100 terabytes of data.
With IQSS’ many other programs and projects—including Data Science Services, the Startup Foundry, the Center for Geographic Analysis, the Human Flourishing Program, and many others plus several in development—we strive to bring together the world's greatest minds to collaborate on new and better solutions for the most pressing issues faced by our society.
IQSS is proud to play a central role in advancing social science research at Harvard and beyond.
