Category: SHAPE

By understanding the ends of research can universities regain their relevance?

In his famous report Vannevar Bush famously described science and research as an endless frontier. However, as Seth Rudy and Rachael Scarborough King argue, being more attentive to where and how research ends might enable universities to construct envi…

Can McDonalds tell us anything about the value of the social sciences?

Taking a sideways look at George Ritzer’s famous McDonaldization thesis, Titus Alexander argues that rather than being an iron cage, social scientists have much to gain from treating such institutions as real time experiments and social models. In his …

Sensationalist messaging around “low-value degrees” ignores the reality of economic inequality

Analysing the recent government messaging on the value of university education, Zoe Hope Bulaitis, argues this rhetoric drastically simplifies how and where higher education adds value to society. In a predictable manner, the calculation of the economi…

Excluding the social sciences, arts and humanities from reporting downplays their importance to research, development and innovation

Drawing on findings from a new report into how the social sciences, humanities and arts (SHAPE) disciplines are understood and deployed in policy and industry, Eleanor Hopkins suggests inconsistent reporting and incentives contribute underestimation of…

Podcast: Do we need the arts to change the world?

The latest episode episode of the LSE IQ podcast asks: Do we need the arts to change the world? As the UK government looks to recover from the costs of the pandemic its decision to cut funding for creative higher education courses could be seen as a pr…

Curbing mass extinction and the collapse of natural ecosystems requires better social understandings of our relationships to animals

As the sixth mass extinction event rages, animal species are disappearing from their native ecosystems at unprecedented levels. Anthropogenic habitat destruction in conjunction with economically incentivized poaching and smuggling operations has create…

“Minimum expectations” are no way to value the arts, humanities, and social sciences

The UK government recently announced its intention to reduce funding for ‘low value’ degrees in the arts, humanities and social sciences. Drawing on her research into the history of higher education policy, Zoe Hope Bulaitis argues that current governm…

The most consequential experiments carried out during the COVID-19 pandemic will be social

The public image of the response to COVID-19 has been presented primarily through a scientific lens. However, as Alana Couvrette argues, the COVID-19 pandemic has been as intense a period of socio-political experimentation, as scientific. Drawing on ex…