ISR receives Frontiers of Knowledge Award
June 22, 2026
The ceremony of the 18th edition of the Frontiers of Knowledge Awards celebrated “the transformative power of science and culture to expand opportunities for progress in a world marked by complexity and uncertainty.” This was the message conveyed by Carlos Torres Vila, the President of the BBVA Foundation and Chair of the BBVA Group, during the event held at Euskalduna Bilbao, which honored 10 individuals and two organizations in the global vanguard of scientific research and artistic creation.
In the Social Sciences category, the award was collected by René Bautista, Director of the General Social Survey (GSS), representing NORC at the University of Chicago, and Kate Cagney, Director of the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research (ISR).
Accepting the award, Kate Cagney described it as a recognition of ISR’s commitment to “evidence-based science and methodological rigor in service to the public.”
Interview with Kate Cagney: “High quality data collection is essential to producing the social facts that inform personal and policy decision-making”
“More than 75 years ago,” she recounted, “two University of Michigan researchers asked what seemed like a simple question: who would win the 1948 presidential election? The answer they found challenged the conventional wisdom of the day. Nearly everyone expected Thomas Dewey to defeat Harry Truman, but their data suggested otherwise. Truman won. And that moment helped demonstrate the power of rigorous social science, which is not simply to describe the world, but to predict and reveal the realities we cannot yet see.”
Dr. Cagney also referred to the growing challenges that public opinion polls face; among them, declining response rates, eroding trust in institutions, and the impact of new technologies, while stressing that emergent data sources and tools like artificial intelligence offer opportunities to build more robust, transparent replicable research, with equitable access.
“We often describe our work as measuring society,” she observed in closing. “But measurement is only the beginning. The ultimate purpose of social science is understanding: helping communities make better decisions, helping institutions serve people more effectively, and helping societies navigate uncertainty.”
For 85 years, said Dr. Bautista, NORC has held to one clear mission: helping society understand itself better. “We do this by asking people about their lives, beliefs and hopes, and by turning those answers into evidence for the public good. The GSS, launched in 1972, is one of the strongest examples of that mission.”
The head of the leading survey of values and attitudes in American society spoke of how its origin lay in a “simple but powerful” idea: namely, that single studies matter, but comparable trends can tell a deeper story. “Trends,” he explained, “bring us closer to separating the signal from the noise. They let us see whether attitudes change within a person’s life, across generations, or when major events unfold.”
In closing, Bautista insisted that “this award honors a core NORC belief: that carefully measuring social life does more than advance science. It builds trust in evidence and helps drive social progress. In times of rapid change and uncertainty, that principle matters more than ever. Our mission remains: we will keep listening to enduring questions and emerging voices. We’ll continue to track how families, communities, and society change.”
More information about the award can be found on the BBVA website.
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