The Institute for Advancing Just Societies

Around the world, race and ethnicity are related to the health of democracies, migration, environmental justice, and national and geopolitical stability. The institute will help focus Stanford’s considerable resources on creating collaborations between faculty and organizations outside of the university to identify pragmatic interventions that address some of the most pressing problems in people’s lives.

Professor Tomás Jiménez and Professor Brian Lowery

Faculty Co-Directors

Real-world solutions

Introducing 'The Flourishing Cities Initiative'

Beginning in fall 2025, Stanford’s Institute for Advancing Just Societies will pursue a multi-year thematic initiative that focuses on the movement of people within and between nations—not as a crisis to be solved, but as a fundamental human reality that calls for innovative management. We aim to capitalize on the opportunities and address the challenges of a world where people are on the move through the Flourishing Cities Initiative: Practical Solutions for a World on the Move.

Learn more about our first multi-year thematic initiative

Student seated at a desk, working on a tablet computer.

Credit: Diego Lima

Global reach

Assistant Professor Guilherme Lichand, an IAJS and Stanford Impact Labs fellow, is leading a team that is taking innovative approaches to collecting data from students and educators in Brazil to identify inequities in the country's school system.

A line of cars waiting to pick up cases of bottled water

Credit: Steve Helber/AP

Community partners

Professor Michelle Wilde Anderson, an IAJS and Stanford Impact Labs fellow, is working with the civic sector, local government, and historically Black colleges and universities in Jackson, Miss., to find a shared understanding of how the breakdown of the city’s relationship with the state left Jackson with an obsolete water system.

Credit: Anthony Chen/Ethography for IAJS

Multi-disciplinary approach

Dr. Alyce Adams, the Stanford Medicine Innovation Professor and IAJS guest speaker, is collaborating with breast cancer peer navigators to illuminate the importance of involving patients in medical research and treatment decisions.

Cultivating public understanding

“What Can Become of Us?” opening event, Asheville Art Museum, credit: Stephan Pruitt, Fiasco Media

An innovative approach to a national conversation inspired by art, public programs, and essays

Join us for “What Can Become of Us?”, offering new perspectives on migration, America's changing communities, and how people come together across differences.

Coming soon to Stanford