• A separate theme for social sciences and humanities in FP8
Posted by Frank van der Most on May 18, 2011
Since FP5, the social sciences and humanities (SSH) have been included in the funding themes. However, the share in terms of budget has been marginal, and the funding opportunities often linked to the FPs’ targeted themes in natural sciences and engineering.
The EU Liaison Office of the Freie Universität Berlin is now arguing for a separate theme for SSH, to serve a grand challenge of ‘Social and Cultural Cohesion’. The Office also argues for more support for SSH from the ERC and in the Marie Curie program.
The EU Liaison Office released a discussion paper (Fiala 2011), which sums up the arguments and provides an outline of the proposed changes. To discuss the paper the Office organized a panel meeting titled “The future of social science and humanities funding in Europe” in the European Parliament on 3 May 2011. Unfortunately, report about the discussion is available at the time of writing this blog post.
Probably, the Freie Universität Berlin is not the only one arguing for more attention to SSH, but it is striking that these disciplines still receive so little attention and budget from the EU, compared to the natural sciences and engineering. As if innovation and Europe’s problems are best addressed through research in natural sciences and engineering.
Links
- Fiala, C (2011) Reasons for European Funding for Social Science and Humanities Research beyond 2014. Brussels: EU Liaison Office, Freie Universität Berlin. pdf, html
- Panel discussion on “The future of social science and humanities funding in Europe” webpage
- Freie Universität Berlin, EU Liaison Office webpage
This entry was posted on May 18, 2011 at 16:26 and is filed under all. Tagged: Framework Program, Germany, Humanities, Social sciences. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
