33. Building a data-intensive social science center

The newly formed Data Intensive Social Science Center (DISSC) at Yale University is a university-wide hub for data-based research and programming in the social sciences, sitting at the heart of an initiative focused on multidisciplinary social science. The Center embodies a modern version of basic university infrastructure and was established to implement the recommendation in a report to the provost by social science faculty from across the university for such a facility. DISSC addresses emerging needs common to the university’s social scientists and is a major step toward realizing one of Yale’s main university-wide academic priorities. As researchers across the social sciences continue to expand and capitalize on data use to study and address social problems, their needs for an infrastructure and support network have increased. Research support at Yale is distributed across campus by schools, departments, and centers, growing organically to meet the needs of their constituents. Over time this network has shown some gaps where disciplines or needs overlap and it could be challenging to navigate which service point is available to which researcher. This poster describes some of the activities during the first year of DISSC, including improvements to research infrastructure, data access, management, and discoverability, cross-campus collaboration, and interdisciplinary data use, which fall under several IASSIST topic areas.