Modern societies are becoming materially richer, digitally connected, and socially fragmented. The Centre for Social Isolation Studies (CSIS) exists to advance rigorous interdisciplinary research on social isolation, belonging, and social cohesion—and translate evidence into ideas that strengthen human connection.
Belonging is essential social infrastructure. Yet across homes, workplaces, and ageing societies, invisible forms of isolation are reshaping wellbeing, weakening communities, and quietly altering the social fabric of contemporary life.
The Centre for Social Isolation Studies (CSIS) is an independent, India-based and globally engaged interdisciplinary social science institute dedicated to understanding how isolation, disconnection, and weakened belonging are transforming modern societies.
CSIS brings together perspectives from economics, sociology, psychology, public policy, demography, and behavioural science to study social connection not merely as a personal experience, but as a foundational dimension of social and economic life.
“At CSIS, we view belonging not as a soft social ideal, but as a measurable, researchable, and policy-relevant public good that shapes resilience, wellbeing, and collective flourishing.”
Economic progress, urban mobility, technological convenience, and digital communication have expanded opportunity—but they have not always deepened human connection.
Across societies, people are increasingly living in environments that are materially advanced yet socially thinner—where loneliness, invisible domestic isolation, ageing-related disconnection, and workplace social fragmentation are emerging as defining social challenges of our time.
CSIS was founded to place these challenges at the centre of serious interdisciplinary inquiry, public conversation, and evidence-informed policy thinking.
Our institutional model combines original data collection, interdisciplinary scholarship, public-facing insight, and policy translation.
Through surveys, field research, analytical briefs, public dashboards, and evidence synthesis, CSIS seeks to make social isolation measurable, visible, and actionable.
Our work is designed not only to understand isolation—but to inform better institutions of belonging.
Examining workplace fragmentation, urban disconnection, digital overload, and the changing social ecology of contemporary adult life.
Understanding loneliness, social withdrawal, and the changing experience of connection, dignity, and belonging in ageing societies.
Investigating the unseen forms of household isolation, emotional invisibility, and social disconnection experienced by women across family and domestic structures.
CSIS is guided by a commitment to methodological rigour, interdisciplinary openness, ethical inquiry, and public relevance.
We believe social isolation must be studied with intellectual seriousness, human dignity, and policy imagination—recognising that belonging is not merely a personal condition, but a social foundation for resilient communities and flourishing societies.
Our vision is to become a leading global research voice on social isolation, belonging, and social cohesion—producing ideas, evidence, and institutional platforms that shape how societies understand and rebuild human connection.
Understanding Isolation. Building Belonging.
Through interdisciplinary scholarship, original data,
and evidence-to-policy thinking, the Centre for Social Isolation
Studies seeks to advance a deeper public understanding of one
of the defining social questions of our time:
How do modern societies remain connected?