Institute of Behavioral Science

The Institute of Behavioral Science is a research institute within the Graduate School of the University of Colorado Boulder. Since its establishment in 1957, it has provided a setting for interdisciplinary, collaborative research on problems of societal concern. By engaging faculty from all the social and behavioral sciences, IBS encourages work that transcends disciplinary boundaries, that illuminates the complexity of social behavior and social life, and that has important implications for social policy.

An interdisciplinary perspective, an international scope, and an applied focus characterize the Population Program’s research and training activities. Among externally funded work, projects on immigration and the geography of the foreign-born population in the United States; on sex, ethnic, and socioeconomic differences in health and mortality in Western Europe, the former Soviet Union, and the United States; on age inequality in income in Western Europe; and on residential mobility and segregation patterns in the Southwestern United States exemplify our research interests in the more developed countries. Studies of the health and fertility of women in Bangladesh, of HIV/AIDS in Africa, and of the needs for pension reform in Kazakhstan are some of the Program’s funded research interests in the less developed world.

Pathways into Program

Admission requirements are those prescribed by the Graduate School and by the social science departments that are associated with the interdepartmental program: GeographySociology, and Economics. Students in the Population Program earn graduate degrees in their respective departments. In addition, they may also complete interdisciplinary course-work and demography requirements to earn a Graduate Certificate in Demography. The graduate certificates are awarded at both the M.A. and Ph.D. level.