ICPSR Strategic Vision & Values

Mission Statement

ICPSR, the world’s largest archive of social and behavioral data, drives research and innovation as a global leader in data stewardship. By offering rich data resources and exceptional educational opportunities, ICPSR empowers current and future generations of researchers and scholars.

Strategic Vision

ICPSR will maintain its mission and leadership as a premier institution providing valuable data to the research community. ICPSR makes data findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable (FAIR) with its globally recognized curation techniques and standards-based metadata and by training researchers to use data in scientifically effective and innovative ways. ICPSR builds and maintains the highest value social science data archive for both the global research community and the broader public. ICPSR’s data resources stand out for their quality, accessibility, usability, and durability. ICPSR focuses on data that has the greatest likelihood to have a transformational scientific impact and make a difference in future research.

About ICPSR

An international consortium of academic institutions and research organizations, ICPSR provides leadership and training in data access, curation, and methods of analysis for the social science research community and beyond. ICPSR stewards a data archive of digital research data in the social sciences, including specialized collections of data in demography, aging, criminal justice, substance abuse, and other fields. ICPSR’s educational activities include the Summer Program in Quantitative Methods, a comprehensive curriculum of intensive courses in research methods, statistics, data analysis, and social methodology. ICPSR also leads several initiatives that encourage the use of data in teaching, particularly in undergraduate instruction. ICPSR leads and engages in many initiatives that result in publications and guidance that address issues related to data stewardship, digital curation, and data science.

ICPSR Strategic Plan, 2025-2030

Six pillars that drive our work everyday

Access

Sustainability

Preservation

Innovation

Interoperability

Privacy

Key goals for the next five years

  • Serve ICPSR’s membership with a persistent focus on providing valued data services and training, equitable consortium fees, support for under-resourced institutions, and development of a member infrastructure to provide feedback to assist in ICPSR improvements and strategy development
  • Undertake targeted acquisition and dissemination of data that has high value for current and future research and learning purposes
  • Develop and maintain relationships with key stakeholders to establish and maintain ICPSR as the repository for valuable data resources
  • Strengthen ICPSR’s leadership role in providing data and data stewardship expertise to the research and evidence-building communities
  • Set the standard for best practices for data preservation and stewardship and the interoperability of repositories, so that ICPSR serves as both a model of and a nexus for innovative and responsible data access
  • Streamline restricted data access to improve data security while reducing unnecessary barriers to access
  • Improve metadata to increase data discovery and facilitate data integration
  • Continuously improve services to support data management and data sharing for reproducibility and transparency
  • Enable innovation in research by ensuring the ICPSR platform supports different data types across the research lifecycle
  • Maintain the reputation and status of ICPSR as the global leader in providing the highest caliber of methodological training and consistently expanding access to that world-leading training
  • Diversify funding portfolio to ensure financial sustainability and scientific freedom.
  • Ensure technological sustainability through continued investment in infrastructure.