Category: social sciences

How the Mars landings took SHAPE – Assessing the contribution of social sciences, arts and humanities to space exploration.

Space exploration can be viewed as the quintessential achievement of technological and scientific modernity. In this post Thelma Obiakor, argues that by appreciating the contribution of the social sciences, humanities and arts (SHAPE disciplines) it is…

Without social sciences, humanities and arts, the goal of sustainability may never be reached

Eric Neumayer and Charles Joly argue that the key challenges posed by making a transition to a sustainable net-zero carbon economy are social, rather than technological. As such, instead of waiting for technological change to simply emerge, in the post…

The social sciences struggle to be relevant. Can action-oriented research help?

How can the social sciences bridge the divide between abstract theory and idiomatic practice? Max French and Melissa Hawkins propose that one approach following this middle-way is ‘action oriented research’ (AOR). In this post they outline what AOR is and how it can make a strong claim as a route to relevance for the applied … Continued

Businesses know the value of social sciences. Higher Education policy needs to catch up

The social sciences are recognised for their role in evaluating policy and offering practice-based interventions about ‘what works’. However, they are less often justified in terms of their value to the private sector. Sharon Witherspoon outlines the finding of a report into eight case studies of UK businesses.  The report covers a range of different … Continued

Open access book publishing should be community-focused and aim to let diversity thrive, not be driven by a free market paradigm

The whole reasoning around open access for books is now aligned to a commercial agenda, where authors invest in openness with the prospect of greater downloads, citations, and impact in return. Marcel Knöchelmann argues that the free market paradigm is particularly ill-suited to humanities and social sciences book publishing and its many diverse scholarly communities. Equitable foundations for open scholarship […]

Interdisciplinary research may lead to increased visibility but also depresses scholarly productivity

Interdisciplinarity has grown in recent years. But how does interdisciplinary research influence scholarship and scholarly careers? Erin Leahey‘s research has found that while interdisciplinary research has its benefits, such as increased visibility as indicated by citations, it also comes at a cost, as it depresses scholarly productivity. Although peer review of interdisciplinary work is less of a problem than anticipated, […]

Five Minutes with Nicholas A. Christakis: “Discovery is greatly facilitated by methodological innovation.”

Managing editor Sierra Williams spoke to Professor Nicholas A. Christakis ahead of next week’s LSE event, Do We Need to Shake Up the Social Sciences? Here he discusses his thoughts on the frontiers in interdisciplinary research, the need for social science departmental re-shuffles, and the radical changes shaping social science’s relevance today. Back in July, your article Let’s Shake Up the Social […]