Thematic Foci 1973 - Present
| 2023-24 | Platform |
| 2022-23 | Climate Crisis Politics |
| 2021-22 | Political Mobilizations and Social Movements |
| 2020-21 | Science and the State |
| 2019-20 | Economy and Society |
| 2018-19 | Crisis and Critique |
| 2017-18 | The Social Sciences in a Changing World |
| 2016-17 | Law and the Social Sciences |
| 2015-16 | Borders and Boundaries |
| 2014-15 | Egalitarianisms |
| 2013-14 | The Environmental Turn and the Human Sciences |
| 2012-13 | Economics and Politics |
| 2011-12 | Morals and Moralities |
| 2010-11 | |
| 2009-10 | The Dewey Seminar: Education, Schools and the State |
| 2008-09 | Social Norms and Cooperation |
| 2007-08 | The Rule of Law Under Pressure |
| 2006-07 | The 'Third World' Now |
| 2005-06 | Psychology and Economics |
| 2004-05 | Interdisciplinarity and Its Objects |
| 2001-04 | Ethics and the Social Sciences: Present Directions |
| 2003-04 The Social Implications of Bioethics 2002-03 Politics and Ethics: The Case of Corruption 2001-02 Economics and Business Questions |
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| 2000-01 | Information Technology |
| 1997-00 | Globalization and the Different Kinds of Local Resistance to It: A Three-Year Program |
| 1999-00 Universalism of Human Rights 1998-99 Political Economy 1997-98 Cultural Globalization |
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| 1993-97 | Transitions: A Four-Year Program |
| 1996-97 Development of “Interpretive Social Science” 1995-96 Modernization and Its Discontents 1994-95 Traveling Reform Movements: Feminism and Environmentalism 1993-94 Politics |
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| 1990-93 | New Perspectives on Social Science and Humanities Scholarship: A Three-Year Program |
| 1992-93 Philosophy and Sociology of Science 1991-92 Ethics, Politics and Law 1990-91 Philosophy of History |
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| 1987-90 | Group Identities: A Three-Year Program |
| 1989-90 National Identity in Post-Colonial Third World States 1988-89 Political Revival of Ethnicity and Religion 1987-88 Gender |
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| 1984-87 | Interpretive Social Science: A Three-Year Program |
| 1986-87 Research Methods in Interpretive Social Science 1985-86 Social Experience of Equality and Inequality 1984-85 The Life History of the Individual |
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| 1983-84 | Toward a Broader Economics |
| 1982-83 | Social and Cognitive Psychology |
| 1979-82 | Self-Perception, Mutual Perception and Historical Development (This 3-year focus, jointly organized by the SSS and SHS, and funded by the Mellon Foundation, ran concurrently with the individual theme years.) |
| 1981-82 | Problems in Political Philosophy |
| 1980-81 | The Comparative Impact of Colonial Regimes on the Newly Independent Countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America |
| 1979-80 | The Sociology of Art |
| 1978-79 | New Trends in Economic Thought |
| 1977-78 | Problems of Advanced Capitalist Societies |
| 1976-77 | The Sociology of Science |
| 1975-76 | The Analysis of Symbolic Structures |
| 1974-75 | The Social, Economic and Political Development of Latin America |
| 1973-74 | Islamic Societies |