Social scientists and the research we pursue with such passion are being buffeted on all fronts, a fact not unknown to frequent visitors to this space. Today social scientists confront scarcities: of funding, of career opportunities in academia, of public acceptance and respect, and of trust in the credibility and value of the work we do.

Yet, at the same time, social science seems to be everywhere—not only on our laptops and data repositories, but in government agencies, human rights organizations, media reports and, especially, in tech firms and other private companies. And social scientists, if not quite everywhere, are working at these institutions as well as in the academy—indeed, for certain types of work, the demand for social science skills is high.

The social sciences are vitally important to the institutions of democracy. Those institutions include a constellation of federal statistical agencies responsible for collecting and disseminating data. With these data, critical decisions are made such as where to build schools and fire stations, how to shape congressional districts, and the way more than $600 billion in federal funds are allocated.

Consider just one such agency, the Bureau of Justice Statistics, responsible along with the FBI, and various other federal agencies, for generating national crime statistics. With these data, law enforcement officials at the state and local levels make informed assessments of the prevalence and frequency of crimes in their areas. Social scientists, such as criminologists, sociologists and others, go a huge step further. They use the same data to discern patterns of criminal behavior thereby facilitating more effective policing and crime intervention methods. They also are best positioned to create data-supported analyses about what types of crimes are occurring, where, and in relation to other considerations such as social, political, and economic factors. They also detect when justice may not have been consistently and fairly applied. The result is a more comprehensive and holistic approach to crime prevention and mitigation.