Marisa Civardi’s research activity at Istituto di Statistica of Pavia University (where she started working in 1964 after obtaining a degree in Physics) is characterised by outstanding achievements in the use of quantitative methods of analysis applied to multidisciplinary social research. Her main research themes so far have been: changes in social structure and in life and working conditions, stratification phenomena and their perception, the status of applied research and the measurement of risk attitude of entrepreneurs, and the careers of a group of Political Science graduates.Marisa Civardi has subsequently conducted innovative research on the structural analysis of income distribution (that is the type of analysis that connects income distribution with the variables that are typical of any socio-economic system) and on inequality problems. In addition to investigating these issues from a methodological perspective, she has also identified recurring features and mutations in personal income distribution in Italy, and she has done research on the relations between functional and personal income distribution. This research includes the possibility of building Social Accounting Matrices (SAM), which can also be used to simulate redistributive policies. A relevant aspect of Marisa Civardi’s recent research is represented by the measurement of the effectiveness and efficiency of higher education. Her intensive experience as a manager of an important university together with her mainly government-funded research activity have enabled her to create innovative instruments for the evaluation of the university system, which can also be used to assess the students’ occupational possibilities. It should also be underlined that Marisa Civardi is extremely aware of the importance of statistical data and of the need to keep it free from theoretical influences and contingent interests.