CRF’s mission is to increase research on family issues, to build a multidisciplinary community of researchers who are studying issues of relevance to families, to connect national and internationally prominent family researchers with UMass faculty and students, to provide advanced data analytic methods training and consultation, and to disseminate family research findings to scholars, families, practitioners, and policy-makers.

Families are a basic unit of human and animal life and research must cross academic disciplines and engage many perspectives to fully understand family functioning. Thus, research at CRF encompasses disciplines as diverse as the life sciences, social sciences, public health and nursing, education, and natural resources. CRF’s programs provide lectures and consultation from national experts, methodological expertise, grant-writing support, and research funding to faculty and students from these diverse backgrounds at all stages of their academic careers. We are committed to investing in each faculty member and student’s research career for the long-term.

CRF is a research center of the College of Natural Sciences and the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences, and has affiliated faculty from departments across campus. In addition, the Center collaborates with other institutions on this campus, within the University of Massachusetts system, and with the Five College community.