Investment Strategy

​How We Fund Research for Impact

​Stanford Impact Labs’ investment strategy springs from our founding agenda: to put social science to work for society by catalyzing actionable research that improves lives. Through our investment process, we enable teams of Stanford scholars working closely with partners across the public, private, and social sectors to address pressing challenges using human creativity, rigorous evidence, and innovative technology. 

We believe that science can address social challenges most effectively when researchers engage deeply with critical stakeholders beyond the university. We therefore encourage ongoing collaboration with partners throughout the research process. Our investments spur funded teams to jointly define questions, gather background information, design studies, interpret results, and scale up impact. When we invest, we expect to see a return—not in money, but in terms of outcomes that improve people’s lives. 

Three Stages of Funding 

Our staged investments support research teams at multiple phases along the path from science to impact in generating new evidence and practical solutions. Our portfolio-based approach allows us to build a diversified research portfolio, funding projects across a range of risk and potential returns. Some studies build incrementally on established knowledge; others explore more uncertain, high-upside questions. By combining steady knowledge-building with bold inquiry, we strengthen both the reliability and the transformative capacity of social science.

The research teams we fund focus on social problems that faculty and practitioners identify as most urgent and where they believe there is the most potential to make progress. We do not have fixed areas of focus, thus applications for funding are invited from Stanford-led research teams from across the university. Each year, we convene an Investment Advisory Council, which includes leaders from government and the social sector as well as Stanford faculty and staff, to provide strategic guidance to strengthen and shape the investment approach.

Our annual investment process is designed to be agile, flexible, and responsive to:

• the changing issues in society
• the priorities and concerns of collaborators and partners
• the shifting expertise and capacity of Stanford scholars
• any potential conflicts of interest.