About Us

The Institute for Society, Culture and Environment's goals are to increase the quality, quantity and competitiveness of the Virginia Tech research portfolio by supporting innovative, interdisciplinary, and translational research that addresses critical human and societal concerns impacting the lives of people and places. The Institute leverages university funds to increase sponsored research and scholarship with a focus on issues of importance in the social sciences.

ISCE primarily supports faculty activities that have the potential for extramural funding. In so doing, ISCE makes available financial and technical assistance that supports the development of individual faculty members and promotes participation in interdisciplinary teams.

Since 2007, investment of over $4 million dollars has resulted in increased  research productivity:

  • 290 faculty members have received support
  • 165+ faculty have received technical assistance
  • 439 proposals have been submitted, totaling $416.2 million
  • 171 awards have been received, totaling $38 million
  • 27+ scholarly books and 140+ journal publications

    (June 2018)

ISCE supports seven associated centers and one research lab, offers a variety of support programs, such as it signature ISCE Scholars program, and provides capacity building activities and strategies including:

To learn more about ISCE, contact Karen Roberto, the Institute director, or Yancey Crawford, Project Coordination Specialist, or explore our website.