University of Michigan., Institute for Social Research

For a historicla sketch see the findign aidfor Institute for Social Research (University of Michigan), records.

As part of the 50th anniversary celebrations of the Institute for Social Research, individuals connected with the history were interviewed. Excerpts of the videotaped interviews were used to produce "In the Public Interest: Fifty years of Social Research."

The Institute for Social Research (ISR), an interdisciplinary center for social science research, was created in 1949 when the Research Center for Group Dynamics (founded at Massachusetts Institute of Technology) joined the Survey Research Center. ISR houses the Interuniversity Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) and the Center for Political Studies (CPS).

From 1964 to 1986 it housed the Center for Research on Utilization of Scientific Knowledge (CRUSK). Directors include Rensis Likert, Angus Campbell, F. Thomas Juster, Philip Converse, Harold Jacobson and David Featherman.

The Survey Research Center, forerunner of the Institute for Social Research (ISR), was established at the University of Michigan in 1946, under the direction of Rensis Likert as a center for interdisciplinary research in the social sciences. Fifty years after its founding, ISR had become the nation's longest-standing laboratory for interdisciplinary research in the social sciences. Findings from ISR studies have contributed to policy and practice on issues ranging from racial prejudice and drug abuse, to health, retirement, and welfare.

For a fuller history of ISR, consult Bulletin 45 in the Bentley Library Series:

Frantilla, Anne. Social Science in the Public Interest: a Fiftieth-year History of the Institutefor Social Research. Ann Arbor, Michigan: Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan, 1998. (FImu C6 S6 F836)