Investment Advisory Council Provides Strategic Insights to Guide Three Investment Cycles

Core to the mission of Stanford Impact Labs (SIL), a university-wide initiative established in Stanford’s School of Humanities and Sciences, is the annual process of making staged and sequenced investments intended to catalyze teams of Stanford scholars and practitioners (“impact labs”) working to generate new insights, evidence, and practical solutions to pressing social problems. 

As SIL’s investment process proceeds this year, it does so with the guidance, support, and oversight of the 2024-2025 Investment Advisory Council (IAC), a group which includes government and social sector leaders as well as Stanford University faculty and staff. The council is carefully assembled to reflect a range of perspectives and harness the expertise of researchers and practitioners experienced at putting social science to work for society across the globe. 

This year, we are delighted to welcome Amira Choueiki Boland, Karan Chopra, Lisa Goldman Rosas, David Grusky, Greg Walton, and David Yokum to the council to work alongside SIL’s own Michael Eddy, Hana Passen, and Misan Rewane.

Appointed for a one-year term, council members meet quarterly to support each of SIL’s three investment cycles (Stage 1, Stage 2, and Stage 3) and provide strategic advice to strengthen and inform the initiative’s overall investment strategy. 

“Stanford Impact Labs was founded on the belief that for certain innovations to work in the world, they must be designed and tested by both those with the very best research capabilities and those with first-hand experience putting ideas into practice. Though SIL takes a “topic-agnostic” approach to funding (which means investments span a range of projects across all seven Stanford schools), we look to fund teams that either have, or are poised to establish, strong research-practice partnerships,” notes Michael Eddy, Director of Investments and Accountability.

This year, more faculty from across the university applied for SIL funding than ever before.

“The invaluable guidance and informed perspectives of the council members help our team move through a series of tough decisions to guide where and how best to allocate SIL’s limited resources,” says Eddy. “While we recognize that not every investment will be successful, our portfolio-based approach allows us to take bold risks against big problems. We are cognizant that not every investment may be successful, but those that are successful yield breakthroughs that have an outsized impact."

Stanford Impact Labs maintains conflict of interest guidelines to manage potential and actual conflicts with advisory council members, reviewers, and others involved in selecting and managing investments.