Research Initiatives
Research units within the Social Sciences Division are hubs for cutting-edge inquiry and innovation. They provide funding support and a collaborative environment for faculty, students, and community partners to work together on addressing crucial issues that will shape the course of our collective future. Explore the websites of the division-level research units listed below to learn about their focus areas, the tools and services they provide, and upcoming opportunities to get involved or support their work.
Each of our departments and academic programs are also affiliated with additional discipline-specific research initiatives, including in Anthropology, Community Studies, Economics, Education, Environmental Studies, Latin American and Latino Studies, Legal Studies, Politics, Psychology, and Sociology.
Institute for Social Transformation
The Institute for Social Transformation is the Social Science Division’s accelerator for pathbreaking scholarship in the public interest. They support the development of research-based solutions that tackle the underlying systemic causes of urgent social and environmental problems. The institute offers funding programs for faculty and students, provides research development and administrative support, organizes high-impact events, and shares key reports, resources, and toolkits.
Divisional research centers
Archaeological Research Center (ARC)
The Archaeological Research Center (ARC) at UC Santa Cruz serves as a center for interdisciplinary archaeological research on the UC Santa Cruz Campus and a crucial link between UCSC and the broader local community.
Campus + Community
(C+C)
Campus + Community is a hub for coordinating and facilitating partnerships between UC Santa Cruz and community groups, providing action-oriented research that advances social justice and shifts UCSC institutional policies to better support community-engaged scholarship.
Center for Agroecology
(CFA)
The Center for Agroecology is a research, education, and public service unit of the Division of Social Sciences dedicated to furthering organic agriculture, ecological sustainability, and social justice in the food and agriculture system.
Center for Analytical Finance (CAFIN)
CAFIN includes a group of researchers whose aim is to solve real-world problems of finance in a globalized financial system, producing cutting-edge research with practical applications in three critical areas: Systemic Risk, Market Design, and Financial Access.
Center for Critical Urban and Environmental Studies (CUES)
The Center for Critical Urban and Environmental Studies supports social scientific research on urbanization and the environment in a time of inequality and climate change.
Center for Economic Justice and Action (CEJA)
The Center for Economic Justice and Action is dedicated to alleviating poverty, reducing economic inequality, ensuring that the essential needs of all people are met, and engaging, training, and funding new generations of anti-poverty leaders.
Center for Integrated
Spatial Research(CISR)
CISR integrates advanced spatial technology, methods, and data with interdisciplinary research challenges in terrestrial, marine, and urban environments. Focuses include geographic information systems (GIS), global positioning systems (GPS), remote sensing, spatial modeling, and statistics.
Center for Labor
and Community (CLC)
The Center for Labor and Community (formerly the Center for Labor Studies) is dedicated to the study of working people, the labor movement, and the challenge of the broader global economy as it impacts the people of California and beyond.
Center for Statistical Analysis in the Social Sciences (CSASS)
CSASS provides statistical and methodological support to the research missions of all departments within the Division of Social Sciences by providing free statistical consulting and quantitative training workshops.
Dolores Huerta Research Center for the Americas (Huerta Center)
The Huerta Center is a vibrant hub for Chicano, Latino, Latin American, and migration studies. In 2022, UC Santa Cruz renamed the center in honor of social justice icon Dolores Huerta, whose legacy has influenced the center’s work and values of driving positive social change.
Kenneth S. Norris Center for Natural History (Norris Center)
The Kenneth S. Norris Center for Natural History supports natural history educational and research opportunities for students, faculty, staff, and the greater Santa Cruz community. Following in the spirit of Ken Norris, the center curates important natural history collections, teaches field-based classes, supports hands-on internships, and strengthens connections among disciplines.
Right Livelihood Center (RLC)
Housed within the Institute for Social Transformation, the Right Livelihood Center is a partnership between UC Santa Cruz and the Right Livelihood Foundation, dedicated to linking faculty and students with “Alternative Nobel Prize” Laureates for research and education about proven solutions to the world’s most pressing global problems.
Science and Justice Research Center (SJRC)
The Science and Justice Research Center takes a problem-solving approach to issues of equity and ethics in scientific practice, through an interdisciplinary working group and a training program for emerging leaders.