Crisis Studies
Crisis Studies
The Crisis Studies Initiative
We study crises—how they form, spread, and are governed.
Seed Funding for Crisis Studies Research
The Crisis Studies Initiative invites proposals for seed funding that advances the study of crisis across disciplines. Faculty may request up to $3,000 and graduate students up to $1,000. Proposals are due October 30, 2026.
Mission Statement
The Crisis Studies Initiative (CSI) at the University of Virginia was established to foster, support, and connect scholarship on crises across the university. While crises have long been studied from a variety of disciplinary perspectives, Crisis Studies is still emerging as a distinct field of inquiry. Building on existing interdisciplinary efforts, CSI aims to bring together researchers from the social sciences, humanities, public policy, management, and related fields to develop shared concepts, research agendas, and approaches to understanding crises in contemporary society.
Our mission is to advance scholarship by focusing on three key dimensions
- Crisis as Ontology: Investigating crisis as an event with inherent reality and dynamics, particularly in the context of polycrisis.
- Crisis as Framing: Examining crisis as a political and cultural process that defines certain events as critical, emphasizing the role of frames and narratives in shaping the social construction of crisis.
- Crisis as Anticipation: Planning for future catastrophic events by incorporating calculation techniques, governmental strategies, and institutional transformations.
Taken together, these three dimensions outline a research agenda for Crisis Studies while highlighting fundamental questions and tensions that no single discipline can address alone. By bringing these concerns into a common conversation, CSI is guided by a strong commitment to community building and seeks to contribute to the development of Crisis Studies as a distinctive interdisciplinary field at the University of Virginia and beyond.