The University of Queensland’s goal of addressing important societal problems with world-class research was significantly advanced through the opening of the Institute for Social Science Research (ISSR) in 2007. The Institute highlights UQ’s burgeoning research strengths in areas of contemporary social relevance.

Excellence

Through ISSR, UQ aims to establish itself as the major centre for social science research in Australia, and as a world leader in this area. The Institute’s focus is on social science research that is evidence-based, problem-oriented and interdisciplinary. A defining characteristic of the Institute is its strong quantitative and analytical focus, but with complementary expertise at the cutting edge of qualitative methods.

Innovation

Researchers in ISSR have substantive and methodological expertise in quantitative and qualitative social science and access to advanced infrastructure to enable sophisticated interdisciplinary research in critical basic and applied areas. ISSR brings together social scientists in an environment where new insights in social science knowledge and application can be readily achieved.

Collaboration

ISSR promotes collaboration among social scientists and other researchers across the University and provides a unified and strong profile to end users in both government and the private sector. ISSR also has strong established collaborative partnerships with public and private sector agencies that develop and promote applied research programs of mutual interest to ISSR and its research partners.

ISSR encompasses:
Australasian Centre on Ageing
Australian Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies
The University of Queensland Social Research Centre
UQ Boilerhouse Community Engagement Centre

Commercialisation

ISSR engages with the private, public and non-profit sectors to produce research results with immediate application. It is engaged with its external partners in taking innovations in social science beyond academia. Leximancer Pty Ltd, a text-analytics software company with an innovative approach to understanding natural language, is its first start-up company and recently secured investment from a London-based strategic investor. Leximancer software was developed in the ARC Key Centre for Human Factors and Applied Cognitive Psychology at UQ. Its developer is now a researcher within ISSR.