The Gould ADR Research Initiative was created to promote academic scholarship on the theory and practice of alternative dispute resolution, and to explore ways to continuously improve the quality of instruction offered through the Gould Negotiation and Mediation Program. The Initiative complements the pedagogical mission of the Gould Center by supporting Stanford faculty in their efforts to develop high-quality, innovative research projects in the field of negotiation.

Dispute System Design—the process of identifying, designing, employing, and evaluating an effective means of resolving conflicts—has been a strong focus of the Initiative, as evidenced by the highly regarded book Dispute System Design by Jan Martinez, Stephanie Smith and Lisa Blomgren Amsler, published by Stanford University Press in 2020. Online dispute resolution has also been a core focus of the initiative. Among many other projects in this area, we have partnered with CodeX, a partnership between SLS and the Department of Computer Science, on an access-to-justice initiative focused on the design, implementation and evaluation of an online dispute resolution (ODR) platform for handling small claims and family cases that are referred to court-connected mediation.