The world’s biggest social problems are complex, multi-faceted, and stubborn. No academic center, company, or organization can solve issues like economic inequality or pandemic response alone. We need leaders with different skills and experiences to come together to create fresh insights, evidence, and action to make progress. Stanford Impact Labs invests in highly-motivated teams of researchers and practitioners from government, business, nonprofit organizations, and philanthropy. These teams—impact labs—work together on social problems they choose and where practical progress is possible. With our support, they can rapidly develop, test, and scale new solutions to social problems that affect millions of people worldwide. Our approach builds on what works in the life sciences and engineering to turn academic discovery into medical advances and new technologies people use: significant investment in research and development, and close partnership with academics and leaders outside the university. It’s time to support the social sciences the same way. With financial capital, professional support, and training, we can catalyze problem-focused research and partnerships to generate new insights and solutions to persistent social problems. In doing so, we can make social science work for society.