Founded in 1923, the Social Science Research Council (SSRC) is an independent, non-governmental, not-for-profit, international association devoted to the advancement of interdisciplinary research in the social sciences. It does this through a wide variety of interdisciplinary workshops and conferences, fellowships and grants, summer training institutes, scholarly exchanges, and publications.
Throughout its program, the SSRC mobilizes eminent social scientists from the U.S. and abroad to identify and explore new intellectual paths and to test their knowledge, theories, and methods against the challenges of contemporary and historical problems. A central emphasis of the Council is to expand the empirical, theoretical, and methodological bases upon which social science research rests. Fellowship and grant programs recruit promising pre- and postdoctoral scholars, and provide support for training and development. Other programs seek to improve the resources available to senior researchers, and provide opportunities for advanced training.
Because it is an independent organization, free from the constraints of policies imposed by government or other institutions, the Council is free to promote training, attention to research opportunities, and application of promising methodological innovations that may not receive adequate attention in university, disciplinary, area studies, or policy analysis institutions. The roster of social scientists who have contributed their voluntary efforts to the SSRC’s undertakings, or who have received what has often been for them crucial intellectual or financial support, contains an impressive number of the world’s leading scholars, including Nobel Prize winners.