Stanford Impact Labs pledges nearly $2 million to 5 social science projects

Stanford Impact Labs (SIL) announced June 18 that it is investing $1.75 million in five new projects that focus on youth smartphone use, neonatal intensive care units (NICUs), food equity, renewable energy and legal justice. Each project will receive $350,000.

SIL will officially launch the collaboration in the coming months with a workshop involving five research teams that will address different societal challenges, according to Kate Green Tripp, director of strategic communications and outreach.

Launched in 2019 by Stanford’s School of Humanities and Sciences, SIL applies social science to address today’s most pressing problems. SIL uses a three-phase investment strategy to support Stanford researchers and professors working on social problems. Each phase includes varying amounts of funding, depending on the project’s progress at the time of application.

SIL’s Investment Advisory Board selected the five initiatives through a competitive application process. According to the SIL website, SIL expects its chosen investments to “improve people’s lives” rather than simply provide a monetary return. SIL said it would only award funding to projects that work in tandem with sectors outside the University and prioritize partnerships with the wider world.

Discover five projects that received SIL funding this year

Newborn Care Project in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit

The aim of the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit Project is to set a benchmark for the quality of family-centered care in hospital neonatal intensive care units and to establish the “gold standard” for family-centered care worldwide.

The project is led by Malathi Balasundaram, a SIL-supported physician specializing in the care of premature and compromised infants and a clinical professor in the Faculty of Medicine. Balasundaram’s research plan is in partnership with two collaborative groups: the NICU Parent Network and the Family-Centered Care Task Force. Keira Sorrells, founder of the NICU Parent Network, said she and Balasundaram have a “great working relationship” and that their collaboration is key to connecting the University with the wider community.

Sorrells said she hopes their work can eventually “extend beyond the neonatal intensive care unit, because there are so many gaps in family-centered care in other areas of health care as well.”

A project on the use of smartphones by young people

Economics professor Matthew Gentzkow is experimenting to find the best approach to limiting smartphone use among kids ages 9 to 14. Ruru Hoong BS ’19, a Harvard doctoral candidate on Gentzkow’s team, said she believes their project addresses a very relevant issue of the day. Hoong called youth a “vulnerable population” and emphasized the importance of the project, noting that it’s a social problem that policymakers are racing to solve. Gentzkow and his colleagues received SIL funding last month and aim to begin work in October.

Food Equality Project

The Food Equity Project aims to integrate equitable nutrition support into health care systems to address food insecurity. The strategy they hope to implement ranges from “medically tailored meals to prescription-grade groceries” and has already shown positive health outcomes in the United States over the past decade. However, this support has reached few patients. The team hopes to scale up their program and eliminate barriers for all patients.

Renewable energy project

The Energy and Sustainable Development Program (PESD) is attempting to create renewable energy policies that “put the consumer first.” According to the SIL website, it hopes to unite stakeholders and address the challenges of implementing sustainable energy sources to ensure reliable policies for the communities they serve.

Legal Justice Project

According to the SIL website, the Rhode Center at Stanford Law School aims to make the American legal system more fair and efficient by investing in digital technologies that will help streamline court processes and reduce barriers to accessing legal information.

Looking beyond these five investments, Tripp said she hopes SIL will continue to encourage more researchers to make a real impact with their efforts. She envisions a future beyond the university in which SIL influences “other campuses (to work) in the same way.”

“Success for us would be if we were just drowning in applicants, because every researcher at Stanford wants to do that,” Tripp said.