CISS Resources Available to Faculty, Graduate Students and Visiting Scholars
CISS is delighted to have reached its five-year anniversary at BU. Founded in 2021, CISS strives to provide a home and resources for social scientists campus-wide. This is the opportune moment to remind members of the BU community about the resources we offer BU social science faculty, students and staff – including meeting/event space, office use, grant administration, communications support for your research achievements, and grant opportunities. Please feel free to contact ciss@bu.edu with any questions, or suggestions for other resources you would find useful.
CISS Affiliation
CISS welcomes social science faculty to become an affiliate of the Center. Responsibilities include willingness to serve on Center review panels and committees, participation in Center activities, willingness to house external research grants at the Center (as appropriate), willingness to serve as a mentor to students and postdocs (as needed and contingent on mutual interest). Benefits include weekly newsletters with curated lists of opportunities, participation in Center activities and focused topic groups, eligibility for CISS funded grant awards, access to Center programming, research supports and services, and opportunities for Center leadership. Please apply here.
Meeting and event space
Social science faculty may book the CISS conference room for meetings or events. We are located in the Center of campus at 704 Commonwealth Ave, on the fifth floor. Our conference room is fully equipped with the equipment for a quick presentation or hybrid meeting setup, and adjacent to a kitchenette. The CISS conference room seats 8-10 people around a table, with a few additional seats around the outside of the room. Maximum, unseated, the space can hold approximately 25.
The faculty member reserving the space is responsible for organizing catering, room setup, and tech support, and returning the room and kitchen to its original state.
Contact ciss@bu.edu to inquire about availability for your required date/time with number of attendees.
Office use
Short-term space – CISS has a vacant desks in shared offices where graduate students in the social sciences who do not already have dedicated office space can sign up for a weekly desk slot, contingent upon availability. These shared offices are centrally located in our Charles River Campus building.
Contact ciss@bu.edu to inquire about availability.
Research Assistant Recruitment Support
We provide faculty, lecturer, postdoc, and graduate student researchers assistance in identifying undergraduate or graduate research assistant candidates and share BU opportunities with student constituencies via our website, weekly digest, social media accounts, and targeted email lists. We reach a large number of students who may be interested in applying for the research positions you have available. We can also assist with producing your job ad and providing information regarding pay rates, BU rules for employing undergraduate and graduate students, and lists of candidate attributes and job responsibilities that may be relevant to your position ad. See here for resources.
Contact ciss@bu.edu to inquire about assistance
Grant administration and interdisciplinary coordination
The CISS administrative team includes pre-award and post-award support via our Grants and Finance Administrator, Chris Chiofolo, on research projects/proposals for social science faculty from any school or college. We are particularly interested in facilitating interdisciplinary proposals that span 2 or more schools/colleges. Projects linked to CISS also benefit from enhanced communications support and coordination with our partners Advancement, Federal Relations, and Foundation Relations.
Please get in touch with Chris for more information or visit during his office hours via Zoom.
Communications support for research achievements
CISS shares news of social science faculty achievements when informed of such, including papers/books/reports, presentations, funding proposals accepted, media mentions, awards or recognitions, engagement with policy bodies or community processes, etc. Our communications team highlights listings in various formats (web, social media, newsletter, annual report) throughout the year. Please submit your news, events, and achievements to our contact form or email ciss@bu.edu.
Funding Opportunities
CISS offers social science faculty and center affiliates several funding opportunities, including:
- CISS Faculty Pilot Grants– designed to provide funding for innovative research projects that explore cutting-edge social issues, especially those that align with the Center themes of inequalities and sustainability.
- CISS Summer Mini-Grants– provides small grants to support faculty (tenure-track and full-time lecturers), postdocs and graduate student affiliates’ research in the social sciences. This is a rapid-turnaround process, to help facilitate Summer research productivity.
- CISS Book Manuscript Incubator Small Grants– in conjunction with the Associate Dean of the Faculty for the Social Sciences in the College of Arts and Sciences provides small grants to support book proposal/manuscript “incubator” workshops. These workshops provide faculty with an opportunity to receive feedback on their book proposal or manuscript draft through a day-long or half-day meeting in which key readers gather to provide guidance and suggestions.
- CISS Paid Undergraduate Research Interns– designed to provide limited faculty projects with a year-long, paid undergraduate research intern where an undergraduate student(s) will focus on three thematic areas: 1) social justice and inclusion, 2) inequality, and 3) sustainability. The research project should draw on social science methods and explore questions related to human society and social behavior. Priority will be given to projects that directly involve undergraduates in the analysis and/or collection of data, where data are construed broadly to encompass qualitative, quantitative, archival, digital, and other forms.
- CISS Event Funding– CISS offers modest financial support, as funding allows, for BU social science related events each year. We consider funding requests in the $100-500 range. Awards are limited and first-come, first-served. Therefore, we encourage you to reach out as early as possible.
- Boston University Internal and External Funding Opportunities– The Center advertises internal and external opportunities via our newsletter and on our website.
Opportunities for students
- CISS Dissertation Finishing Fellowship– This annual fellowship supports an outstanding social science doctoral candidate who will complete their dissertation during the academic year (no later than August 31st).
- Encourage your students to sign up for CISS’ Weekly Digest We compile and circulate a variety of opportunities that could be your students’ next internship, event, conference, or research opportunity.