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Communities today are struggling to address a host of challenges, each of which poses significant societal implications if ineffectively addressed. Some problems are quite local: housing insecurity, decaying infrastructure, household poverty, indebted local governments, and polarized communities. Others operate on a much larger scale, such as health equity, migration pressures, and climate change. 

While governments often bear primary responsibility for addressing these issues, the critical role of the private sector, philanthropic institutions, and nonprofits cannot be ignored. We believe universities and colleges can do far more to address these threats, by spurring research—designed with government and community involvement from the start—that can generate evidence and insights to help tackle some of today’s most pressing social problems.

At Stanford Impact Labs, we invest in teams working across a range of issues and disciplines, including:

• Health Equity

• Democracy, Governance & Polarization

• Energy & Environment

• Gender Equity

• Migration

• Poverty & Economic Opportunity

• Racial Equity