Programs & Products

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.

data specialist at whiteboard

Incubation

IQSS partners with faculty and researchers to incubate data-intensive social science research initiatives.

This process involves working as a team to move the idea through the incubation life cycle, which includes discovery, development, launch, growth, and assessment.

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  • Scientific Programs

    Center for Geographic Analysis

    The Center for Geographic Analysis administers Harvard-wide GIS infrastructure, collects and disseminates spatial datasets, and provides training and consultation in the use of geospatial technologies. 

    Learn more at the Center for Geographic Analysis website

    Lish logo

    The Laboratory for Innovation Science at Harvard (LISH) is spurring the development of a science of innovation through a systematic program of solving real-world technical challenges while simultaneously conducting rigorous scientific research and analysis. 

    Learn more at the LISH website

    Human Flourishing Program logo

    The Human Flourishing Program aims to integrate knowledge from the empirical social sciences and the humanities on topics such as religion, virtue, work, purpose, forgiveness, marriage and family.

    Learn more at the Human Flourishing Program website

  • Scientific Programs

    Geometric window next to text "Program on Survey Research" 

    The Program on Survey Research encourages and facilitates research and instruction in the theory and practice of survey research, with a mission of enhancing the quality of teaching and research at Harvard. 

    Learn more at the Program on Survey Research website

    Future of Media overlaying a smartphone displaying news

    The Future of Media Project is a partnership with HBS aiming to further research and identify implementable solutions to rebalance truth, privacy and power in the media industry.

    Read more at the Future of Media website

    Henry Murray with text "Henry A Murray Research Archive"

    The Henry A. Murray Research Archive is a permanent repository for quantitative and qualitative social science data. The collection comprises over 100 TB of numerical datasets, video and audio recordings, interview notes, and other media. 

    Learn more at the Henry Murray Archive site

  • Scientific Programs

    dlabbs logo

    DLABSS is an online experiments and survey community for social science research.  It is an innovative tool for connecting subject pool participants with researchers conducting surveys and  experiments. 

    Learn more at the DLABSS website

    Social Science One text logo

    Social Science One implements a new type of incentive-compatible partnership between academic researchers and the private sector to enable the use of information amassed by companies to address societal issues, while protecting their respective interests and ensuring the highest standards of privacy and data security.

    Learn more at the Social Science One website

    Text of "Politics Through Time" overlaid on William Hogarth's painting "The Polling"

    The Politics Through Time Program builds a research hub for those interested in studying the historical development of elections and democracy by using recent advances in information technology and data-science. 

    Learn more at the Politics Through Time website

  • Scientific Programs

    Black padlock unlocked by noisy-textured gold key with Data Privacy Insights text

    The Privacy Insights Project is developing statistically valid differentially private systems, including OpenDP, that will also protect researchers and society. 

    Learn More at the Privacy Insights Project page

    Clouds outlined by sunlight with text "The SilverLining Project"

    The dark web includes every manner of content, including claims about data breaches exposing personal information. The damage they cause is well known; what is not known, and what the SilverLining Project studies, is whether we can find a silver lining in these dark clouds by creating some social good out of the chaos.

    Learn more at the SilverLining website

    PEBLSS name overlaid on a photo of rocks

    The Program on Experience Based Learning in the Social Sciences provides a modern support infrastructure to Harvard programs and faculty that create active learning opportunities for Harvard students. 

    Learn more at the PEBLSS website

Product Development

dataverse project logo

Dataverse is a software platform that enables the hosting of research data repositories. It provides a preservation and archival infrastructure, and allows researchers to share, keep control of, and get recognition for their data through an easy to access web browser interface.

 

Contact: support@dataverse.org
Website: The Dataverse Project
Website: The Harvard Dataverse
Metrics: The Harvard Dataverse Metrics
Roadmap: The Harvard Dataverse Roadmap

OpenDP starburst logo and name

OpenDP is an effort to build a suite of open-source tools for enabling privacy-protective analysis of sensitive personal data, focused on the rapidly advancing science of differential privacy to enable institutions to safely and confidently share sensitive data to support scientifically-oriented research in the public interest. 

 

Contact: Annie Wu
Website: OpenDP

systems development logo

The Systems Development team innovates the next generation of systems for computational social science. They work closely with third-party cloud vendors to host technology services that have become commoditized, and they develop innovative architectures that leverage the elastic and scalable infrastructure of cloud resources, enabling the further development and integration of new technologies to make computing easier and more powerful for social science researchers.

 

Contact: Len Wisniewski

Rlogo

R Packages

IQSS has led the development of Open Source analytical tools, such as R packages, for researchers. These packages are freely available for anyone to use, modify, and contribute to.

IQSS empowers researchers to disseminate their work, and others to replicate it, by providing an Analytical Tool Building service that will develop a state-of-the-art R package from your raw code.

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