For our Division of Applied Social Sciences faculty, staff and students, research means studying how people, organizations, communities and businesses can best achieve their goals and make a difference in the global food and agriculture system as well as rural communities.
Our research touches diverse disciplines, including:
- behavioral finance
- community development
- communication
- economic and rural development
- education
- governance
- hospitality
- management
- operations
- policy
- risk management
- sustainability
By conducting research in these areas, we strive to discover insights that people in the food and agriculture system — leaders, educators, managers, opinion leaders and volunteers — can apply to do their jobs better, lead better, communicate better and ultimately enable our world’s food and agriculture system to function better.
DASS has several centers and institutes that focus on research and outreach in areas such as:
- The Center for Economic and Financial Education that promotes economic and financial education in schools.
- The Financial Research Institute (FRI) that provides a neutral environment for stakeholders in regulated public utility industries to come together to examine, understand and debate current issues relating to public utility policy through its public utility division.
- The Graduate Institute of Cooperative Leadership (GICL) that prepares participants to lead and manage cooperatives, which are important economic engines in rural communities.
- The Interdisciplinary Center for Food Security that brings together researchers from across campus to address the complex challenges facing our food system in Missouri and beyond.
- The McQuinn Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership that helps students develop the skills they need to start and grow their own businesses.
- The Rural and Farm Finance Policy Analysis Center (RaFF) that provides objective policy analysis and informs decision-makers on issues affecting farm and rural finances.
We are committed to making a difference in the world by conducting research that informs policy and practice, educating the next generation of leaders and providing outreach and engagement opportunities to communities.
Graduate students benefit from the world-class knowledge of our faculty.
CAFNR Programs of Distinction
Division of Applied Social Sciences faculty are part of CAFNR Programs of Distinction including:
The Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute (FAPRI) seeks to provide objective analysis of issues related to agricultural markets and policies. FAPRI has developed a state, national and international reputation as a reliable source of information and analysis on everything from farm commodity market outlook to the impacts of farm bills, trade disputes and biofuel policies. FAPRI is best known for its projections for the farm economy. Using its set of economic models, FAPRI develops 10-year projections for thousands of indicators that affect the state of the food and agricultural sectors. FAPRI projections include the price of corn and cattle, farm income, agricultural land uses, the cost of government farm programs, and retail food prices.
Collaboration at Mizzou
The collaborative nature of Mizzou strengthens our research. Mizzou is one of only a handful of public institutions nationwide that have a medical school, veterinary medicine college, law school, agriculture college (CAFNR) and engineering college on the same campus along with an interdisciplinary life sciences research center, a precision health research facility and the highest-power university nuclear research reactor.