Conference on THE VALUE OF SOCIAL SCIENCE AND HUMANITIES IN EUROPE

The concept and objective: The long term objective of the conference and efforts of the organisers seeks to ensure that social sciences and humanities (SSH) receive their proper recognition in academia and society. Too often governments, European policymakers and research community refer approvingly to the undoubted contributions made by natural sciences, engineering and technology to wealth generation, economic prosperity, knowledge transfer, innovation, and the development of new businesses, products and services, while failing to acknowledge the equally important contributions made by SSH.

Furthermore, SSH research is neglected and poorly utilized in Horizon 2020 (even in SC6) as evidenced by several reports. However, it is obvious that society’s most pressing challenges can be solved only by the successful interplay of all fields. The boundary between natural sciences and social sciences and humanities is becoming increasingly fluid as research at the frontiers of knowledge becomes increasingly inter - and multidisciplinary.

Document Integration of Social Sciences and Humanities proves that SSH is unevenly integrated across H2020 , and ERAC (the European Research Area and Innovation Committee) points out in its Interim Evaluation of H2020 that there is clear lack of interdisciplinarity for all societal challenges, except in SC6. The main objective of the conference is to demonstrate the importance of SSH research for competitiveness of Europe and well - being of its citizens, their contribution in solving main societal challenges and the added value of multidisciplinary research. The importance of SSH should also be recognised in the next EU research policies and framework programme for research and innovation by a more prominent and clearly pronounced role of SSH expertise in societal challenges/missions and by meaningful integration of SSH into policy documents, topics’ calls and evaluation panels.

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