Committed to interdisciplinary research and training, Duke University offers an expansive network of centers and institutes that provide resources, intellectual leadership and synergy for population research. As integral members of this larger Duke research community, DUPRI faculty frequently hold appointments in a number of other University institutes and centers.
Center for Child and Family Policy
The Center for Child and Family Policy (CCFP) is working to solve problems facing children in contemporary society by bringing together scholars from various disciplines with policy makers and practitioners, in an effort to improve the lives of children and families.
Center on Health and Society
The Center on Health & Society (CHS) connects scholars at Duke, and provides various forms of infrastructure support for research on health disparities, including: research symposia; distinguished lecture series; grant support through Dukes Social Science Research Institute; dissemination of information on health disparities research and grants; and a weekly writing and research productivity group for junior faculty postdoctoral scholars.
Children's Health and Discovery Initiative
For more than eight decades, the faculty and staff in the Department of Pediatrics at Duke University School of Medicine have conducted pioneering child health research, and expertly trained future pediatrician-scientists. Now, under the umbrella of the recently launched Children's Health & Discovery Initiative, these efforts will have an even bigger and broader impact. By bringing together pediatric physician-scientists and faculty experts from a variety of fields across the Duke campus, the new initiative will drive multidisciplinary research collaborations focused on improving children's health and identifying pediatric origins of disease.
Duke Aging Center
The Duke Aging Center is a multi-disciplinary hub for the promotion of healthy aging across the lifespan and management of social and medical complexities in late life. With more than 150 affiliated faculty members from across the University and Medical Center, and millions of dollars annually in aging-related research funding, the Center is a vital national resource for the study of aging.
Duke Center for Genomic and Computational Biology
The Duke Center for Genomic and Computational Biology seeks to to catalyze innovative, interdisciplinary research in genomic and computational biology across Duke’s campus. The Center is dedicated to training the current and next generation of researchers and provides expertise and services in genomic and computational technologies, data analysis, and funding for bold, innovative interdisciplinary research. The Center’s educational programs support undergraduates, graduate students and senior researchers with a variety of classes, hands-on workshops and research opportunities.
Duke Department of Population and Health Sciences
Duke’s interest in population health has been both longstanding and widespread. To focus that interest and create a transdisciplinary setting for research and education, the University’s Board of Trustees approved the Department of Population Health Sciences in the School of Medicine in May 2017. The department brings together faculty and operational staff in behavioral science, epidemiology, health economics, health services research and policy, and implementation science.
Duke Energy Initiative
The Duke University Energy Initiative is a university-wide interdisciplinary collaboration focused on advancing an accessible, affordable, reliable, and clean energy system. The Initiative reaches across business, engineering, environment, law, policy, and the arts and sciences to educate tomorrow’s energy innovators, develop new solutions through research, and improve energy decisions by engaging business and government leaders.
Duke Global Health Institute
The Duke Global Health Institute (DGHI) works to reduce health disparities locally and worldwide. Recognizing that many global health problems stem from economic, social, environmental, political and health care inequalities, DGHI brings together interdisciplinary teams to solve complex health problems and to train the next generation of global health scholars.
Duke Initiative on Survey Methodology
The Duke Initiative on Survey Methodology (DISM) is an interdisciplinary initiative located within the Social Science Research Institute at Duke University. Founded in 2010 by Dr. D. Sunshine Hillygus, DISM is a space where researchers can exchange ideas about survey research and learn about survey research methods. Welcoming Duke affiliates from across academic and professional fields, DISM has many resources available to support research including training in survey research methods, consulting for individual projects, and funding opportunities. DISM aims to improve survey research at Duke by providing core survey support services; expanding training in survey methods and contributing knowledge to the field of survey methodology.
Duke Innovation and Entrepreneurship
The Duke Innovation and Entrepreneurship (Duke I&E) aims to put ideas into action. Duke I&E leverages the innovations that grow at the university level to make tangible, perceptible change through entrepreneurship. Duke I&E does not displace the university’s time-tested mission of teaching and the creation of knowledge, but rather expands that mission to include the conversion of knowledge into real things and real actions to make a real difference in real people’s lives. Duke I&E reimagines the role of the university in modern society, away from an institution whose work ends with the creation of ideas and toward one whose work begins with those ideas, toward an institution that seeks to solve in a practical way the great challenges of our time.
Duke Institute for Brain Sciences
The Duke Institute for Brain Sciences (DIBS) advances interdisciplinary research and education that transforms our understanding of brain function and translates into innovative solutions for health and society.
Duke Network Analysis Center
The Duke Network Analysis Center (DNAC) brings together Duke faculty and researchers around the triangle to foster cutting edge network studies. DNAC (1) creates a strong network research community to share and develop ideas, (2) helps facilitate new funded research projects by linking investigators with complementary skills, and (3) provides training and technical analysis support for new network-related research projects.
Duke Roybal Center for Translational Research for Mobility and Healthy Longevity
The Duke Roybal Center for Translational Research for Mobility and Healthy Longevity seeks to catalyze researchers across disciplines to develop and test innovative behavioral interventions to optimize mobility for older adults. These interventions aim to foster independence and community participation, reduce unplanned health service use, and enhance quality of life.
Duke Science & Society
Duke Science & Society examines the integral role of science in law, policy, social institutions and culture. Advances in science and technology rapidly change the world we live in, shape our lives and culture, and raise myriad ethical, legal, and policy-related questions: What are pressing social problems for which there may be technological solutions? What steps promote just distribution of beneficial technologies? What policy issues does emerging science raise? How can different stakeholders work together to promote good science? And how can we tell when science is ‘good enough’ to be used as the basis for legal and policy decision-making? The Initiative for Science & Society examines these and other broad-ranging questions.
Duke Social Science Research Institute
Duke University’s Social Science Research Institute (SSRI) brings together researchers with interests in problems that cross the various social and behavioral sciences, including problems that connect with the humanities and natural sciences. SSRI promotes multidisciplinary collaboration among such scholars as they work on important social issues that are challenging to address fully from within any given discipline.
John Hope Franklin Humanities Institute at Duke University
Founded in 1999, the John Hope Franklin Humanities Institute (FHI) is built on a fundamentally collaborative model befitting the Duke University emphasis on knowledge in the service of society. Through interdisciplinary cross-fertilization, we seek to encourage the conversations, partnerships, and collaborations that continually stimulate creative and fresh humanistic research, writing, teaching, and practice at Duke. Inspired by the scholarly and civic example of John Hope Franklin, we also support work that engages questions of race and social equity in their most profound historical and global dimensions.
The Kenan Institute for Ethics at Duke University
Now in its third decade at Duke, the Kenan Institute for Ethics is a think and do tank dedicated to understanding the moral challenges of our time and creating scholarly frameworks, policies, and practices to address them. The institute is committed to both empirical and ethical inquiry into how individuals, organizations and societies do, should and can live together and treat one another, about what’s good, right, admirable, or fair.
Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions
The Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions seeks to address some of the world’s most pressing environmental problems through scientifically grounded, rigorous, balanced nonpartisan policy analysis and broad-based dissemination of the Institute’s work.
Rhodes Information Initiative at Duke University
The Rhodes Information Initiative at Duke (iiD) is an interdisciplinary program designed to increase "big data" computational research and expand opportunities for student engagement in this rapidly growing field. Started in 2013, the program is led by Robert Calderbank. Launched as an initiative of Duke University, Rhodes iiD is partnered with the Duke University Quantitative Initiative, which promote cross-pollination of ideas throughout Duke’s programs and research projects, and works to increase the number of quantitative faculty in all disciplines on Duke campus.
The Triangle Comparative and Evolutionary Medicine Center
The Triangle Comparative and Evolutionary Medicine Center (TriCEM) is a nonprofit institute exploring the intersection of evolutionary science and medicine. The center is jointly operated by Duke University, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, North Carolina Central University, and North Carolina State University. TriCEM is an incubator that promotes innovative developments in the theory and practice of evolutionary medicine by fostering cross-disciplinary collaborations among Triangle-based scholars, physicians, veterinarians, public health workers and more.