Most - if not all - of the research conducted at the AISSR concerns urgent issues of social and political controversy – from migration and belonging, to global health, to environmental sustainability, to urban quality-of-life, to global terrorism. AISSR research and publications often inform new policy agendas in the Netherlands, Europe and the world.

We directly promote societal impact in four distinct ways:

• Dissemination of scholarly findings:  This involves activity to share and spread AISSR researchers’ core research findings to a broader audience of stakeholders, beyond our academic peers.  We want the research to be seen, heard and listened to. This includes press releases, interviews to the press, videos, animations, and social media.
• Direct societal education: This involves various educational seminars, lectures, roundtables, media appearances and other events in which AISSR academics educate broader audiences — usually the general public but sometimes more targeted stakeholder audiences distinct from our academic peers — about our work and expertise. The AISSR is, for example, an active member of the academic-cultural platform SPUI25.
• Network memberships: This involves formal or informal networks, where research is carried out in direct cooperation with stakeholders. All externally funded research projects and all research related events are published on this website.
• Spinoffs and new organizations: This involves taking research enterprise and intellectual property and using it to start-up a new activity or organization beyond basic AISSR university affiliations. An example of such a spinoff is the Public Mediation Initiative.   

If you want to know more about the work we do, please read one of our 'Impact Stories': 

• An alternative approach to illegalised migrants
• Fighting overweight and obesity
• How can we achieve lasting changes to benefit the quality of life for people with dementia?
• How can we include people in decision-making processes?
• Climate change- empowering developing countries in the climate debate